Shape Your Flesh - Episode II: The Painted World of Atebid
by Powersocke Prime
Summary: Picking up where Shape Your Flesh - Episode I left off. Thorus Blackward and the Dark Brotherhood assassin Nephethys venture into the unknown realm of Lord Atebid's own design. Will they get their revenge? Or will courage falter, leaving them to die unspeakable deaths? Time will tell.
1. Chapter 1

I

It is only natural for those not acquainted with neither the outer spheres nor with the arcane acts of creation to assume that what we call 'reality' is all which exists. It is entirely plausible to infer that, beyond the known planes, there is only dream and void. It is only logical to pronounce any conflicting cogitations pertaining to the presumed and speculated on existence of dimensions and worlds outside the commonly taught and indubitably known as madness. But our bodies and minds, with their unsatisfactory and inferior array of senses and fragile approach at fully grasping the universe and all that lies within can only detect, process and understand, envision and imagine so much.

After all, who is to judge the squeamish and unknowing, oblivious to their own ignorance and incapabilities? Is not the blind man inept to evoke in his mind a picture when iterated upon colours? Does not the deaf man toil in the comprehension of the true meaning of intonation? Likewise, the uninitiated lack the knowledge to see anything beyond their horizon.

I, too, had been like that before my investigations into the Heartland Kidnappings began. So it will surprise me not should you choose to tread the discombobulated path of rejection, damning the very idea of what this second part of my epistle is about to relate. But I implore you to listen, to heed my warnings. Failing to adhere will most certainly spell disaster. If, indeed, disaster is not already on our doorsteps.

So far, the journey had been long, physically tiresome and mentally straining past acceptable levels. All that we have hitherto seen defied common sense and excoriated our beliefs. Moreover, our provisions were depleted save for a less than sufficient amount of water. The many battles that led us up to an event of a very much climactic quality were many. Nephethys and I were still on the hunt for the perpetrator who took all those innocent citizens. But he not only stole their bodies for his perverse amusement. At length it became abundantly clear that this antiquated madman of elven race stole the very essences of all he had laid his callous fingers upon and with them, painted the cyclopean picture of a world wholly alien to ours.

And with such finesse and magical acumen as to make it truly come into existence somewhere within the contorted space of cosmic unrest, frighteningly real as we discovered when he, self proclaimed Lord, Atebid, _entered_ the canvas of his own design. Evidently a gateway into his pestilential soul. To think such things possible shakes and terrifies me. As does the prospect of pursuit into whatever hellspace awaits. I need not describe my emotions further, for I believe you are feeling it right now. In your gut and ghost.

As discouraging as the situation the two of us had been thrust into was, we knew we were not alone as long as we had each other.

The premise of companionship invigorated our spirits to cast light where shadows reign. Though the more radiance we produced, the greater the darkness around us became. And in making that step into the strange realm of the carnal Lord, as critical as it was to our success, our bright rays of knowledge would be smothered by an all-devouring blackness.

To be able to proceed meant to acquire sources of sustenance. As previously mentioned, we ran out of edibles. If we wanted only the slightest chance of survival it was imperative we obtain nutrition of some capacity. In quest of finding it, Nephethys and I scanned the chamber in which she fought our adversaries mere moments ago. Unsurprising the revelation was that these crazed cultists kept no cattle or livestock. From what we've observed it wasn't too far fetched to entertain the idea that their dietary habits were of a more cannibalistic nature.

To our chagrin this also meant there was no item present throughout the entirety of the subterranean structure, from the discontinued sewers all the way to the Ayleid ruins, that could be classified as 'food' in the traditional sense.

The two of us disgusted ourselves when we, for but a moment, mused about dismemberment of the freshly slain men and women to satisfy our hunger when it would later gnaw from the inside. But the Divines were negligent that day. So, in spite of our creeping sickness, we had to resort to an outré of carnivorousness. A grim purpose the gruesome details of which I will refrain from burdening you with. All that I am going to tell is that, in the end, we had again a solid chance at survival, our pouches filled with gloomy contents.

But is the cost of preparedness measured in one's own humanity, as it is measured in the blood of the fallen? Do we have to abandon ourselves? Time will tell if the mind holds fast - or slips.

II

After we've cleaned us and our equipment, rinsing everything with as much water as we could find and bottling up the untainded remains thereof, additionally to procuring ghastly provisions for the oncoming travels, preparations were declared complete.

As we re-entered the chamber through that ancient Ayleid archway, we were once again awestruck by the painting's magnificence and sheer order of magnitude. Yet, we worried profoundly at the purport of the imagery it so unabridgedly showed us. What daemoniac realm we resolved to submit ourselves to against our better judgement.

If that piece of haemal art was a truthful depiction of the mad domain of the bloodthirsty Lord, the worst was yet to transpire. Upsetting was the landscape stroked so finely upon the cloth, disturbing the lifeforms thusly reputed to walk the hostile, burnt earth. Aggravating the leaden clouds that hung heavily above all, their lightning crawling in and out of the starry vault.

In the foreground were visible dry dunes of a torrid land riddled with skeletal remains and crumbling foundation walls. Starved bipeds were roaming the sands under an invisible sun. Off to the left I espied queer structures of black brickwork, inhabited by creatures unknown to Mundus. On the right, a dead forest of charred woods and thorny branches. Hung from the trees were several bodies lining a path into the disconcerting thicket that lead up to a dilapidated fort ruled by an undead of immense power.

Further back I saw a temple of extraneous design, towering over its small island it was situated upon. At its peak were constructed horns akin to those of the minotaur chiseled from solid rock. Framed by them a gigantic crystal emitting a dark radiance.

Further in the back still were apocalyptic landscapes upon which sat a conglomeration of smaller, crooked buildings and less discernible lifeforms, caves and mounds, dried lakes and rivers, all these framing a terrible city with its thick walls, high towers and the peaked roofs of its palace of the vessel. It in itself the temple to the Carnarium.

Far in the background, at last, were visible the jagged mountain ridges, their serrated edges cutting into the umbral skies. And the tenebrous heavens bled where they were cut, a red stream winding its way down the tyrannizing rock formations.

Such was the glimpse we beheld of this unnatural location, this dimension of oppressive corruption.

"What do you suppose will greet us on the other side? When we step through?" Nephethys asked, nervously awaiting my reply. "I don't know", said I, " This canvas is all I see of that world. Should no clever deceit be involved in Atebid's disappearance, I conclude this vista be our destination". We looked at each other. Our firm glances fixed upon the eyes, darting back and forth from one to the other and back again.

"Are you in fright?", she asked then. "Yes", I aspirated. Truly, I was in turmoil. I had no intention of lying to my companion. "Me too.".

She stared down at her defiled legs with watery eyes, a tear making its way down her cheek. "I'd rather die before I let myself be tortured further. Even so, the fear still resides within my bosom. I need you for this, Thorus. If you don't go, I-"

I cut her off as her lips began to vibrate, her throat clogging up beneath a runny nose. The bodily modifications she had been subjected to broke her spirit to such an extent as to appear helpless at times. And this was one such moment. She had become stronger than ever before, albeit at a terrible price none could be prepared to pay.

I went on to hold her face in my opened palms as a gesture of consolation before I whispered: "Speak no more. Worry not. We will punish him and get our vengeance together. I will gladly brace the unknown with you. I vow to never abandon your company, to never let you stand alone against this evil."

Slowly, the tips of our noses touched. I fell into her passionate embrace, feeling the slight moisture coating her skin. And as our lips connected, so did my heart shine in a comforting lustre from within my chest. The frequency of its beats increasing for as long as that intimate moment wore on.

Time elapsed. And with it, we put some distance between us to gaze longingly into our respective likenesses. Her wet orbs watched mine when the familiar expression of resolute strength and anger gained purchase. "Let us move then", she announced grimly, turning her head towards the portal mounted on the wall.

Only then was it how I noticed the rigidity with which my hands were ensnared betwixt her fingers. At length she let loose, the two of us now facing the prophetic image, fabric besmeared with substances not to be named or described. At last and in terrible anticipation did we step up to it. We felt the air move on its own pervaded with primordial malignancy. In the same manner did Nephethys and I also conceive of the boundless agitation that coursed through our veins, traversing with riveting speed the bloodstream to infest our hearts. It was time. Time for the leap of faith.

III

Who could have possibly predicted that the mere propinquity to the source of such unconsecrated witchcraft would result in a biologically measurable shock?

It was more than only horror that befell us. As soon as we had touched the foreboding canvas, both she and I got pulled into a maddening stream of cosmic chaos. We could not resist the preternatural force which exercised its rule upon us. This portal was not like any door one might casually step through. Rather, it was more akin to a maelstrom one finds high at sea, swallowing ships and regurgitating only torn pieces. And in this instance, I was the ship.

As my Dunmer companion and I fell through this vortex of galactic disquietude, it felt as if we traversed the endless, brooding gulfs of space itself. I espied behind me Nirn as it got warped and contorted out of proportion until it faded entirely, getting lost among the stars. Soon enough, I observed myself being twisted impossibly, comparable to a piece of parchment, crumpled-up in a person's fist. Hitherto unknown powers threatened to rip apart the very fabric of my being, whereas at the same time these very powers attempted to compress my flesh in a perpetual struggle of unsaintly indifference.

The vistas of what unspeakable things lay beyond the veil of mortal understanding and experience gradually melted my mind. My soul tried to flee, to break free of its earthly shackles for the agony my consciousness had to endure evaded reason.

In the pulsating flux of otherworldly grandeur I managed to grab Nephethys' hand when, finally, the two of us got expectorated into a dank, cavernous place. I tried to open my eyes but my body and mind had been figuratively crushed past their limits. And like that, I fell into a faint.

When I came to, every single part of my body ached considerably. So much so as to impede my movement, scarcely allowing me to sit in an upright position. After many groans I opened my eyelids to survey our new surroundings.

I sat with the back to a wall inside some black lair which was composed of what I assumed to be basalt or another dark mineral. The stone itself was ice cold to the touch when I lifted myself up from the ground, though the circumambient, singularly dry, air was scorching, choking me somewhat when I first inhaled it.

The chamber itself appeared to be quite small and was, aside from a grey staircase lined with two partly broken pillars, largely empty. Said pillars were cuboid in appearance, perpendicularly stretching to a height of about two meters, with pyramidal tops. Their fronts were embellished with glowing, red glyphs, absolutely alien albeit very similar to those engraved into the bones of Nephethys' legs and those of the Shaped. The looming archway led only further into darkness as I let my gaze wander upwards the slightly compromised indentations in the earth.

Off to my right stood Nephethys, as always recovering much quicker than I, eyeing me closely and profoundly. After making sure of my well-being, she helped me up to my feet. I struggled to keep my posture due to the exhaustion from the portal we had just traversed. Notwithstanding my obvious fragility, my ash skinned friend embraced me tightly, the pain thus caused fortunately overshadowed by the elation I felt in that instant. I hugged her back, smiling as much my expostulating muscles would permit me to.

"Thorus! You're awake and well, thank Sithis!" she enunciated with glee.

Our abatement from the raging tempest that was the contingency around us was only momentary however. In the distance we heard a raucous hissing underlined with an oppressive droning sound that reverberated off the walls, filling the place with a deplorable atmosphere.

The two of us, in our enfeebled state, albeit Nephethys considerably more rejuvenated, mustered the courage to sneakily approach the winding set of stairs. I turned to look behind me and saw, then, no egress by which we could travel back home. We were trapped there, wherever 'there' lay.

At a snail's pace we climbed the steep stone steps of the spiralling ascent when we were again interrupted by a noise. We halted to listen with fastidiousness as we picked up on what we suspected were naked feet traipsing around just above us.

Nephethys drew her dagger, more out of habit than intentionally, for she was adept at defending herself with her weaponized tibiae. I, in turn, silently removed my gladius from its scabbard. Armed and prepared for combat, we proceeded, the tension among us almost audible.

Seconds later we reached the upper portion of the cave, a thin, red mist gently encircling our legs, accompanying our movement when we stepped out of the shadows and into the main area of the underground dwelling. Nephethys and I held our respective breaths as the source of the aforementioned noises came into view.

Some fifteen meters in the distance there stood a nude, humanoid figure of curiously genderless appearance, its back facing us. The thing sported a deathly pallor in conjunction with an extraordinary famishedness. All of its bones were clearly traceable under the meek, corpse like skin, its joints sharply protruding out from the poor thing's silhouette. Most, if not all, of its veins plainly perceptible among its dermal coating that contained the under nurtured meat.

It gurgled for a while before aimlessly stumbling forward a few steps. The mode of locomotion not dissimilar to ours, much weaker though, a testament to its ravenous state.

We prepared our strike with avid meticulosity to preserve the element of surprise when suddenly, it turned its head. With loathsome aversion did I behold its likeness. A faceless head, completely unlike the crimson cultists we've met before in that it was not coated with skin. Stunningly, its entire facial portion was absent. The flesh that usually constitutes it nowhere to be seen! Instead, only a gaping hole with a small mound indicating the presence of the throat. We've quickly taken to calling them The Blind, for they could not see. As such, they posed no immediate danger to our health on first encounter, contrary to most other abominations that had heretofore crossed paths with us.

Watching the sad, slightly hunched creature move into arbitrarily chosen directions almost made me feel sorry for it. There was this air of innocence about the way its muscles quaintly shivered, in the very way it moved to and fro. I am going as far as to speculate that it was afraid of something, even.

I took a step forward. And in doing so, the miscreant registered my presence in an instant. It turned to face me, inhaling with curiosity. Before I could take any further action it spewed forth a bloody, nebulous mist from within its caved-in head to cloud my vision. Then it hurried off into an opening in the anthracite wall to the right. Nephethys and I, puzzled, gave chase.

The hot, acrid ambiance contributed greatly to our building fatigue as we tried to follow the peculiar biped, unsure if it was even of human or elven heritage. In entering the aperture whence it fled, the two of us swiftly located the direction its echoes emanated from. Not losing its track, we took a left inside the dark tunnel, the strange vapours that hovered over the freezing floor being thrown into utter disarray as we moved.

Soon, the cramped walls and ceiling of the narrow passage would disembogue into an elongated vault of the same material. At the far end of it, we espied what we presumed was the cave's exit judging from a large opening embedded into its farthest wall permitting a pale, sand-coloured ray of light to illuminate the area. And in its luminosity we could not only observe the object of our pursuit. Its shadowy outline mingled with several others of its kind. An assortment of starved, tremulous beings of similar stature and demeanor presented itself to us. All of them roused by the one we had affrighted mere moments ago. They turned and rushed to the cavern's entrance in order to get away from something they couldn't detect.

In bafflement we followed. Both of us nearing the hole the creatures just entered, bathing in the weirdly cold incandescence of a sun we were unable to see. Nephethys shot me a glance of uncertainty. What lay behind the obscuring splendour? What lands would await our advent into its bowels?

I looked back into the humming hollows one last time before I went into the outside, lifting the curtains of mystery. My friend followed suit and together, we beheld what world that twisted Lord had crafted.

In awe, I could only hardly believe what picturesqueness was laid out before my eyes. For I recognized every last detail of the gruesome panorama that quizzaciously loomed on the horizon. I now came to realize that this wasn't a dream, far from it. It was the painting. The mad fancy of Lord Atebid incarnate.


	2. Chapter 2

IV

The tremendous shift from expectancy to vile reality was harsh and utterly unforgiving. It sparked in me an emotion I could at the time only hardly describe. A mixture of surprise, fear and disdain. But somewhere within lurked something else entirely. It was a sense of something catastrophically apocalyptic that crept in the bleak alleys of my mind. For the vista we beheld harboured some inherent disaster, albeit I couldn't quite place it.

Nephethys and I stood at the brink of this heretofore unknown realm of dæmoniac purport.

I scrutinized the horizon with fastidious minuteness to reassure myself that it was, indeed, the living, breathing dimension of the heinous canvas from space through which I suspected we had traveled. The very amount of similarities to it and the abominably real counterpart was staggering.

But it was only by the professional acumen from my years in the Imperial Investigative Division that I noticed some odd differences in the landscape.

For one, as opposed to the painting's portrayed angle, Nephethys and I appeared to be in a slightly differing spot. This location obfuscated partly the view of the looming mountain ridges. Aside from this, the two of us also failed to see the brooding, dark gem that was perched on top of a towering structure on a lonely island. Moreover, our gazes did not spy the half-decayed forest in its entire and complete odiousness.

The conclusions I drew thence led me to believe that we'd have to travel elsewhere to receive a proper glimpse of the world at hand. And perhaps, I thought, this was a first clue. A hint as to where we should let our feet carry us first.

Slightly dazed, I turned around and looked up into the heavy skies. The grey wall of rock that constituted the outside of the cave we had just emerged from stretched approximately a hundred meters upward, crowned by a balustrade of some proportion that slightly jutted out of the rock face. Said protrusion appeared to be chiseled from the solid stone, including the railing around the terrace's edges. From inside the caverns one could not reach it.

As intrigued as I was by those tremulous, shriveled creatures that preceded our egress into the bewildering plains of these lands, I had the implacable urge to find a way onto that balcony. With Nephethys in tow I turned right in an effort to circle around the hill in hopes of uncovering some means of ascent. And sure enough, when we, after a few minutes of treading the arid ground, reached the backside of the formation we inspected, there revealed itself to us not one, but two startling views.

After a dry gust had blown away our footprints in the brown, powdery sands, the first thing I noticed after the dusts which obstructed my vision had faded, was a flight of presumably ancient stairs. Carved into the stone itself, they wound themselves up the rather steep hill where it would meet with the sky.

On the opposite side, however, I could spy a terrible shore adjacent to, and no doubt in conjecture with, a red, foul, carnal sea with raging waves and hideously malformed silhouettes moving quickly beneath the water's surface. This body of water appeared to be limitless, completely devouring my reverent gaze all the way to the horizon's farthest point of reference.

At that moment I briefly wondered what lay beyond the sanguine gulfs and streams but dared not to think of it further, lest I discover truths meant to he hidden. Another question, still, occupied my worried mind when I tried to picture what eerie lifeforms might conceal themselves under the vile waters.

_What lurketh malevolently under the sea?_

I quickly banished those detestable deliberations when I heard these strange words in my head. They were not born from my own fancy, I was certain. Or did something more sinister gnaw at my sanity?

Decently overcome with an alien dread, the source of which I could in no way deduct from any one impression, I turned around to face the steps I was inclined to traverse. As I looked at them, I could observe their quite ruinous state which suggested them to be of rather old date.

Clambering up the two hundred steep, debris-infested indentations proved to be obscenely cumbersome. But the fatigue we submitted ourselves to should be rewarded.

When we finally reached the terrace I had espied earlier, I at last gazed at the full extent of the unfamiliar country below and beyond. The dark tower and its isle were now plainly visible to the eyes of the beholder, the jagged mountain ridges that - quite literally, in fact - cut into the heavens now perceptible in their true and unnatural grandeur. The forest, at last to be seen in its complete capacity and scope. But then a frightening thought snuck into my consciousness as I marvelled at the incredible scenery.

For it almost felt as if the painter had been standing where I now stood. But was all this not of the mad Lord's design? The riddles and puzzles suddenly mounted. I saw now behind the elusive curtains while I observed the broken down structures and dried lakes.

For if the artist creates such magnificence, would it not be in their best interest to have everything in pristine condition? Is it not his desire to paint its life with splendour rather than pestilence? Everything I glimpsed retained a queer sense of antediluvian antiquity that just could not be, considering how this place had allegedly been conjured into existence only recently.

A whirlwind of different forms of anxiety ravaged my mind as I dared not think to myself that which I suspected.

Nephethys eyed me inquisitively. "What's wrong?" she asked. I replied:

"What if this place hasn't been created by him? What if he only procured a means of travel to it? Opened the gate? What if this hellscape had already existed several eras ago?"

V

There was this gradually growing apprehension. The implications of my inquiries, provided my suspicions were correct, posed a conclusion more horrible than the prospect of a madman creating a world like this. Because if it is true, there is no telling what other unsaintly realms might hide beyond our conceptions. And what dwells within them.

Distressed, the two of us turned around in order to descend, but we halted our movement for but a moment. From our newly discovered vantage point, we could now with unprecedented clarity behold the shadow-plagued ocean that bothered me so. And indeed, even from here I could see no new land formations occupying the horizon. The sheer extent of it unsettled me on a primal level. A kind of fear which I could not explain but felt as if it was inherent to life. Something I had no control over. I watched the liquid undulate about, not sure if it was truly liquid or a viscous mass of dissolved flesh. A fresh wind sent odours of utmost repugnancy and foetor our way, stemming from the endless sea.

Even more disturbed, I hastened down the steps, secretly hoping to never have the misfortune of having to sail along the coagulated brine of the mucous sludge beaches that reeked so dreadfully. My Dunmer friend followed me shortly afterwards.

I took great efforts in getting away from that condemnable shore and walked forward with a rushed pace, towards the windy, arid dunes wherein the Blind dwelt. After a few meters, an out of breath Nephethys called for a stop.

"Where do we go?" she inquired. I pondered, for there were a few paths to be taken.

Straight ahead lay the barren plains of sand and skeletons, inhabited by starved and scared creatures. Said creatures made their homes in the ruins hither and thither dotting the landscape.

Off to the right were the thorny woods and broken gallows. A fort was situated within the briar-infested thicket, but only the Divines could have guessed at what would await our advent into its walls. From there up north ran a path straight to where we knew was the tenebrous tower, perched on its top and lined with horns of stone a crystal of dark radiance.

Shifting my eyes to the left hand side, I spied a few hills and cave entrances on burnt earth, among which was discernible a road to the spiky mountains.

The two of us contemplated our options. Eventually we concluded that it was probably for the best if we sought shelter first, taking our general tiredness and strained selves into account. The most immediately reachable stood straight on, betwixt the blind things and a host of ruinous architecture, accentuated by osseous remains of various sizes. From simple humanoid skeletons to carcasses as great as two bears.

Slightly dissuaded from aforementioned remains, we set out to wander the cold sands. No paved way appeared to be present. And if there once had been, I suspected the uncontrollable weather to have chafed it away long ago.

We trod the drought-stricken land, moving ever closer to the already withered cadavers and destroyed buildings. When the feeble bipeds were made aware of our presence they began to scurry off into the worn, crumbling walls of what I assumed to at one time must have been a quaint settlement, hiding themselves. While we were on our way to enter the least squalid house with the least amount of disrepair, I failed to shrug off a sense of something dreadfully malicious about this place as we drew closer to our destination.

I caught myself asking: what were those sorry things so afraid of? What had taught them that anything beyond vacancy is a threat?

Regardless of our growing concern we continued onward until we arrived at a broken doorway to one of the depraved dwellings. We were quick to claim ingress for our increasing weariness urged us to sit down and rest.

Scanning the arguably small confines of the space we found ourselves in revealed two large enough boulders for resting purposes about two meters off to the left. Further observation shewed a long cold fireplace straight ahead as well as a bare, rusted bed railing along dusty remains of what I figured to once have been an end table adjacent to it.

The entire room was approximately seven meters in total breadth and as such suitable for our temporary tenancy.

Nephethys and I took a few steps further into the inside, aiming for the two pieces of rubble, when we heard something move within the chimney directly above the woodless fireplace.

With apprehension drew we our weapons, ready to end the life of whatever hid itself in the walls. More violent shuffling could be heard, faint dusts and fumes trickling down the tight quarry. The cobblestone wall at my blade's tip, I fiercely rammed my boot against it whereunto the fragile frame of one of the blind creatures tumbled down to hit the floor with a noisome crack. In its defense, it clouded our vision with a bloody mist before limping outside. Its leg had definitely been compromised from the fall.

The two of us followed its movements. Just before we would avert our gazes from it to turn around and get some rest, we witnessed a prodigious shadow speed by, seizing the famished biped after which it left a sanguine trail in its wake.

"Great", Nephethys remarked, "We seem to have just beheld the reason for their fright".

Whatever the incredibly fast shade was it appeared to be the source of the omnipresent anxiety among the indigenous life forms around these parts. Judging by the remains of its victim, that monster employed a kind of force past our abilities to combat it.

She and I looked at each other while an oppressive feeling of insecurity made our blood quicken. How naïve to think only harmless beings would roam this strange country!

Gnawing hunger encroached ever so slowly but we could not allow ourselves to rest easy with an imminent threat at hand. The slightest lapse in concentration could mean our demise. As such, abatement was impossible to consider.

A few disconcerting moments later, heavy footfalls on the ground outside disturbed the fine, powdery layer that sat on top of it. Its sound got carried by the winds which themselves appeared to increase in their intensity, accompanied by a feral grunting and growling. An almost wet breath slowly closed in on us as we stood there, unmoving, in trying to not arouse the animal any further.

We snuck away from the door frame with almost comically careful steps, out of its line of sight should it peer through it. Queerly, I hoped for the monster to be greater than its already large shadow implied. If the walls held fast when brutal assault is applied, it could not enter to rend our bodies if the opening didn't permit it to.

The in- and exhaling came ever closer. As we were both hidden away, we were unable to behold its likeness when it strained its nostrils audibly to pick up our scent.

Without warning, an ear-shattering roar made me stumble away from the wall I was hugging. I tried closing my ears with both index fingers while dizzily rocking my head slightly from left to right. The malign power of its voice was enough to paralyze us in fear. A few seconds passed and I regained my composure. Still somewhat hazy, I scouted through a crack in the brick wall to find out more about our horrifying foe.

My limited field of view prohibited me to make out every minute detail but what I saw sent my mind reeling in an act of misguided self-preservation.

A thing of gargantuan size, coated in white fur with black stripes here and there. Huge claws, an order of magnitude suggesting to be twice that of a regular sabre cat from the Nord's homeland. Long streaks of saliva steamed in the creature's trails.

Before I was able to receive a look or two at its head and face, a maddening howl broke the silence and interrupted my observations. In another instant, it appeared to have flung itself against the building with all its might in order to bring it down. A long, thick horn was thrust into the crack I had mere seconds ago used to peek outside, the beast's shoulder threatening to destroy our shelter.

Small bits of debris rained down on us, the wooden support beams of the ceiling bent with raucous moaning.

The beast hurled itself a second time at the wall, causing one of those beams up above to break apart and only barely to miss Nephethys' head. The roof shook violently at the loss of the stabilizing log.

Before long, it caved in. A cataract of heavy stone, planks and straw burying us underneath. Another hateful growl reverberated within our heads as the storm increased in velocity.

VI

We kept still for what felt like an eternity. Buried alive and with troubled breathing, we hoped that the roof that just came down would sufficiently mask our scent and the ever more powerful winds dispersing any remnants thereof. A wave of relief brushed over me as I could hear the slow paws retreat to an unknown location.

When I began shifting and wading through the ruinous remains I noticed how I was largely unharmed apart from a few bruises here and there.

I took great pains to dig myself out but thankfully, the house still stood. Nephethys was likewise occupied with emerging from the pile. However, her injuries were of more serious concern. A sharp rock must have scraped off a large portion of her left forearm's skin while simultaneously breaking it which resulted in a jagged bone protruding from inside her flesh. The hot blood was dripping down, quickly coating the straw that lay scattered about.

When she finally freed herself I saw her grimace at the burning pain. She cursed loudly, seemingly for a moment forgetting that there roamed bloodthirsty entities outside.

We exchanged worried looks before she asked: "Can I request a favour of you?" with broken countenance. "Anything" I replied under my breath. "My tibiæ", she said, " They're enchanted to sap a victim's life force, do you remember? If I could just…". She stopped speaking at my corroborating nod. I knew what was about to happen but it was the only way to prevent her demise.

She fell silent at what she was about to do. Uncertain if it was right. But I needed to ensure her survival. After all, such a ghoulish wound will be her undoing if we did nothing about it. If left unattended, Nephethys would expire from either blood loss or disease very soon.

Slowly making her way through the debris, her hair disobeying in the shrieking gusts that encircled us and made small particles fly around, she closed in. A sorrowful expression took over her face as she gently lifted her leg and prepared herself to hurt me. "I'm sorry, Thorus", she aspirated with watery eyes. Suddenly, her blade slashed my right arm. A deeper than expected cut made the blood flow freely. In the next moment I felt my strength decline while I observed my friend getting reinvigorated by those evil enchantments. Through magic, her bones aligned with each other perfectly while flesh and skin sought each other's propinquity in order to heal.

"By Sithis, I…" was all she said before she tore apart her mask and cut off one of the belts of her armour to provide a bandage. She applied it quickly and with surgical meticulosity to staunch the flow.

Now, however, I truly needed to rest. I've slept not, eaten not and was now partly bereaved of my very life force. I harboured no grudges against her though, for I knew what was at stake and what consequences would have ensued if I had not consented to helping her in this way. And after all, patching up a narrow cut was not as difficult as to mend bones broken in the most fiendish way with missing skin and exposed flesh. It appeared, too, that Nephethys' hunger had been appeased also by this unholy act of blood magic. A practical albeit terrifying side effect of her enchantments.

I carried myself over to where the two boulders had been prior to the collapsing of the roof. The two of us brushed away the remains of the once intact ceiling and finally sat down.

She watched as I grabbed my pouch wherein I had stored the gory provisions. It was now clear to us that we could not hunt and kill whatever beast had compromised our temporary dwelling. And so I had to resort to the only source of food that was at my disposal.

As murderous and as evil as the Dark Brotherhood was, the blasphemous crime I would commit in but a few seconds was not on their agenda. Even vampires stay away from such hideousness. Only a werewolf could not get nauseous at the gruesome imagery that would soon unfold.

The first bite was putrid. Riddled not only with a taste of profound bitterness and noises of the most odious quality while chewing, but also with self-doubt. Moral questions and pictures of dismembered bodies reigned over my feverish mind when I started gagging and coughing right after gulping down the first piece. It was not long before I regurgitated, tiring me even further. The process of ingestion now more strenuous than it was beneficial. But I had no choice. In utter turmoil I resolved to toil. And as I toiled and toiled, Nephethys, too, became sick at my perpetual vomiting, plunging me in unbearable torment.

I had been chewing my seventh bite by the time it stayed in my stomach.

This ghastly meal was an experience most harrowing. And even though this action was completely irredeemable, I needed to survive and not starve. When my hunger finally ceased, my skin was already in a deathly pallor. I could barely think. Talk, even less.

Nephethys swiftly gathered the straw from the caved in ceiling to spread it out over the rusty bed railing supported by a few broken wood beams. She then motioned me to lie down and rest. And rest I was in dire need of.

I stumbled towards the makeshift bed and laid myself on top, limbs outstretched. It took only a few seconds for me to fall asleep amidst the mourning gales that screeched eerily in between the cracks and holes of the dark bricks around us.

As my eyes involuntarily closed, I saw Nephethys, smiling. Her hand softly stroking my head, she whispered into my ear: "Sleep well, my love".


	3. Chapter 3

VII

I awoke with a splitting headache, Nephethys' outline fuzzy from my blurred vision. As it turns out, losing part of one's life force takes its toll on the body. While I struggled to get up I noticed an eerie silence around me. The storm seemed to have subsided. My Dunmer companion smiled at me softly as I battled to assume an upright posture at the crude bed's edges. "Are you feeling alright again?", she inquired.

I told her that I felt as if I had had some alcohol abuse the night before but aside from that, I was fine. In truth, I didn't feel properly rested. My throat still burned from the vomit that had left my body in such disgusting waves. And apart from my head, the laceration I had received still hurt as well.

I brushed over my face in tiredness, little, crusted blood flakes dislodging themselves from my mouth and chin. An odious sickness was made manifest immediately, for they reminded me of what I had done. How viscerally I devoured the flesh.

I moaned with multitudinous kinds of agony and rose up to my feet. While I slept, Nephethys tried a bite of that meat for herself but was unable to get it down, explaining the discarded chunk of flesh in the corner. Maybe her situation hadn't been dire enough, I thought to myself.

The two of us, after embracing each other in support, made sure that the desert surrounding our shelter was safe to traverse again. We certainly did not intend to encounter one of those monsters out in the open. When we saw the poor, blind things roam the dunes anew, we assumed that relative peace must have been restored.

With cautious steps we left our temporary habitat, now unfit to keep even a beggar safe and sound, out into the blood soaked sands. Various bodily remains littered the ground. But the blind things seemed not to notice these, for they had neither smell nor vision. Only on rare occasion was it that one accidentally bumped into a mangled corpse whereunto it hissed in fright and surprise. These emotions would then turn into a somber, calm apathy at the realization that one of their brethren had been slain. They knelt down for a moment, brushing their palm over the lifeless flesh. Likely to ascertain the cause of death or the deceased's identity, I inferred.

While I was distracted watching the sorry tragedy of silent mourning and inaudible grief, Nephethys concerned herself with scouting the area. There were still many ways to go, but the most salient feature of the panoramic display we were offered appeared to be a black city with high walls and dæmoniac watch towers reaching up into the tenebrious heavens.

"Let's head for that city", she ordered, "Something tells me that unsanctified Lord resides there".

I agreed in taciturnity, for speech was still an arduous task and I did not want to strain myself too much yet.

And so, we proceeded with our wanderings. The growling of the gruesome ebb and flood from the sea had been long replaced by the thunder above us. We traveled past smouldering ruins of a destroyed village, passing by scared and trembling creatures. We witnessed, too, a dried river on our way, with queer marine skeletons arresting our attention.

The osseous remains looked unnatural. Uneasiness turned into a rising terror when I noticed that these big fish were no variants of ordinary salmon or slaughterfish, the latter being the worst a swimmer had to fear in Cyrodiil's lakes and ponds. Their upper body had strikingly human features in addition to jagged teeth and a very feminine skull. It invoked in me the image of fabled mermaids and perilous sirens. Should we ever be in need of venturing to the coast again, I concluded, we must be watchful lest we fall for clever trickery and deceit. For it is said in ancient legendry that a siren's allure is nigh impossible to resist.

With worry in my mind and fear in my heart I, together with my friend, continued onward until at length the great, black city came into view, blotting out the rest of the world. The closer both of us came the more it became clear that this place was several orders of magnitude grander than the Imperial City.

A cyclopean gate forged from iron blocked our path. It was lined with two statues of infandous armour, armed with unspeakably long halberds that every now and then reflected the lightning from above. The protecting figures were about twice my size measured in total height, their polearms extending long past that limit. They gazed down on us rather intimidatingly as we approached the ten meters high metal doors.

We were quick to, due to its sheer immensity, take note of three indentations, arranged in a triangular pattern, about the size of two human fists, embedded into the prodigious metalwork. Underneath them there was engraved in the solid, wrought iron an inscription, written in old Tamrielic. It read thusly:

_"To unclose the gate, one must beareth the three Signs of the Vessel._

_The First was grown in flesh._

_The Second, forged in blood._

_The Third, crafted from bone._

_Only then may the Bearer of the Signs reciteth the ancient Word of Sárka to gain admission to Bendicia."_

Slightly perturbed by the statues observing us from within their cold, unmoving hulls, Nephethys and I moved a few steps back to ponder on these words with utmost concentration. Nephethys spoke up, stating that we'd most likely obtain the three Signs by visiting certain important landmarks we glimpsed while inspecting the country from the balustrade we had climbed to afore.

One of the Signs could then, I chimed in, perhaps be found somewhere within the strange tower on the lonely isle off to the right.

I suspected the dæmon-crystal to be an indicator of supreme primeness.

Furthermore, I added, the bleeding clouds above the sharp and pointy mountains must be a clue as well, taking into account the mention of one of the signs being of sanguinary nature.

The Dunmer remarked thereafter that the only, truly notable place left would be that rotten fort in the spiky, gallows riddled woods only a few hundred meters southwestward from our current position. If the painting from Cyrodiil was to provide any hints, an undead ruled over that place, accounting for the presence of bones from which it is written the third Sign is made.

But even though the two of us could rightfully pride ourselves to have, as we had suspected, solved the riddle, there was still left one aspect of the uninviting inscription which puzzled us.

What was 'The ancient Word of Sárka'?

"I don't know", said Nephethys, "But perhaps our destination for procuring it lies beyond the city of Bendicia".

VIII

Truth be told, we had no knowledge of what lay situated in the city's shadow. The gargantuan structures were so staggeringly ginormous that, even from our previous vantage point on the balcony about a hundred meters above ground, we could not see past it. Thusly it was the most plausible thing to reason that the word we sought should be acquirable somewhere beyond the startlingly high walls of Bendicia.

If our suspicions turned out to be true, treading further up north would be, in relation to our present location, the most immediately reachable destination. Confident in our estimates, we turned away from the infernal portal and made our way to what we believed was behind the city proper.

We made a left, hugging the intimidating wall in order to circumvent the entire place. It at length turned out that the wall separating the hostile and largely inhospitable wasteland that we called the Painted World from its inner secrets was larger than we had at first expected.

By simple principles of size, I thought, this must be a humongous metropolis. The fact that we had to travel for half an hour without seeing a conceivable end to the stone barriers' length told me that the surface area of the circular structure must be several times that of the outer perimeter of the Imperial City. The conclusions I drew from this hinted at a dwelling of unbelievable size when considering the volume in relation to the outer surface.

While I had these rather frightening cogitations, I noticed how the climate in this realm feasted on our stamina, gradually depleting it. The parched, hot air and arid winds in conjunction with the gelid sand and other just as frigidly temperate objects wore us out greatly. Our bodies were not used to conditions so in contention with each other. And it certainly was no aid either that it never became truly dark in spite of the absence of a sun to cast light. Even more confusing was it that the leaden clouds permitted no rays to penetrate them save for the occasional bolt of lightning.

Our senses were at prodigious unrest. So much so that I lost my thoughts somewhere along the way. Panting as if I had ran, dehydrated as if I had had no fluid intake, starved as if I had not eaten. Indeed, every aspect of this diabolical plane seemed tailored to destroy mortal minds and vessels.

Finally, after an immeasurable distance traveled, we glimpsed the first sign of intact masonry and houses in much less disrepair with our exceedingly exhausted eyes. My vision had adopted blurry outlines and unclear shapes in place of their usual keenness from the general stress and the dust every now and then blown into them. Even so, I was certain I saw a quaint chapel amidst the surrounding structures and moving shadows. But these shadows precisely caused reason to wake us from our fatigue induced slumber.

IX

We were now wide awake at the premise of yet more lifeforms. From their general outline it became clear they shared nothing with the hitherto encountered blind creatures. Firstly, all of them possessed faces and hair. Moreover, these humanoids weren't as squeamish and anorexic, sporting a gait to be described as quite normal. Did we haphazardly discover real people who've built themselves homes to live in within this unhallowed land? What implications did this present? Did it mean that they were forced to make a living out here for there was no escape?

A wave of cold now overshadowed our endeavor. If we could not leave, what exactly was the point in pursuing the dreaded Lord Atebid? If he could not escape as well, the threat would be null.

Before I had a chance to drown in my wild and complex thoughts, Nephethys tugged at my sleeve and motioned me to take cover behind a conveniently placed boulder to our right in order to obfuscate our presences from the unknown civilization at hand. We had no knowledge of what it would mean to be discovered so we had to exercise caution. Because there was always this latent threat that pervaded everything in this world.

From behind the rock, we peered at the conglomerate of figures moving to and fro a great, central building of which a high, slim tower jutted out betwixt the other dwellings. Evidently it stood in important connexion to these men and women that roamed the area.

A closer look revealed a people unlike the races one sees throughout Tamriel and Pyandonea. They were indubitably of merish descent, judging from their pointed ears and slanted eyes, supported by an overall slim complexion and slender stature of body.

Their deathly pallid skin invoked reminiscences of the ancient Chimer while at the same time these fellows looked like escapees from a mortuary. As if they had been suspended in exitus before being born.

And while I should later discover that this wasn't the case with them, other things in this dimension certainly shared this attribute.

These rather queer elves were all dressed in what I from previous combat with the crimson cultists knew were ceremonial vestments of deep red hue. Some of them concealed their visage with a cowl while the majority wouldn't. However, I found it particularly wondrous how I noticed a lack of stolen skin patches on their faces. Did the cultists from Cyrodiil ascend to this form, then? Or were these pale, alien mer a progenitor to them? An ideal to strive for? Or even an indigenous race?

Perhaps the zealots from beyond the painting merely emulated whatever bestial religion those pointy-eared devils revered.

Alas, Nephethys and I had no choice but to approach the fiends. At least they appeared as if open to reason and conversation, unlike all other things and people we happened upon.

After a few minutes of pondering, the two of us resolved to step up to them and try for a talk. As we drew nearer to the small hamlet, we observed that the houses present, while not as crumbling as the others we had seen, were severely dilapidated to a point of suggesting vacancy. Nevertheless, those people seemed to live there notwithstanding the inherent squalor of the place.

Step by step did we nervously close in on the robed elves that inhabited the area. Some of them swiftly took note of our coming and prepared various kinds of unsaintly magic in their white palms. Those who observed us repeatedly spoke one word in a hushed whisper: "Outsiders".

Nonetheless, their stiff and immovable expressions I was unable to interpret from the lack of emotion. They stared at us blankly, as if a waxen mask had been laid on top of their faces.

About a hundred meters away from the town's rim was where it happened. All of a sudden, a conspicuously aged mer pointed his index finger at us and exclaimed, his right arm outstretched: _"Scavenger!"_

At first I was under the impression that this was the local naming convention and a title bequeathed to those who scour the umbral plains of this inhospitable country for supplies. And I most assuredly did not look like a person who was not in need to resort to such measures. I witnessed him ready a spell, presumably of destructive nature, when an unbelievably powerful strike swept me away.

I was flung off to the left, covering a great distance before my compromised body was fiercely driven into the dust. From afar I saw that this strike served to educate me about how farcical my heretofore established belief was that the word that was yelled had been for me and my friend.

Through my resulting concussion and injury I observed an immense creature fighting against Nephethys and the strange elves. A horned, white, red-eyed sabre cat twice the size of what I had come to know in Skyrim during my travels. Black stripes and gigantic claws swung at the defendants and my Dunmer friend as thick drippings poured out of its steaming maw.

I only saw Nephethys jump on top of the enormous thing and countless spells rain down upon the infandous beast before my consciousness forsook me.

What I remember next is that I had a terrible dream. In it, I stood on top of a hill, looking down on a burning house. I could not move, nor could I speak. Yet I knew that I was there. I inhaled the noxious air, permeated with the unmistakable stench of burnt flesh. I felt on my bare feet the sharp grass swaying back and forth in the light breeze that so gently delivered to me the scurrilous odour of charred wood and ardent death.

And lo, two burning individuals, screaming horribly in profound dread, attempting to flee from their torrid torture before succumbing to their immolation. Another man stood there, a few meters from the fiery mansion, who watched the macabre spectacle in callous inertia as the crackling figures, silent now, collapsed.

As the limp bodies still fumed and smoked, that man's gaze met mine. And as it did, I heard a thunderous wall of flames behind me, devouring slowly the hill I stood upon in my insurmountable paralysis. Panicked, I frantically looked all over for a means of salvation while I struggled to at all move my stiff muscles. My perpetual battle against my own corporeal shell turned into a feverish war as with every attempt at movement a painful seizure took hold of my extremities.

In my plight for help I again rested my eyes on the stranger near the house. _Only then did I realize that I was looking at my own, indifferent, dæmon-visage! _It was myself down there when I watched my family die! But who was I in this scenario, then?

My time to think was short, for the raging flames were already licking, tasting, eating my helpless soul. The distress and soreness were unbearable as I was alight with gleaming fury.

I woke.

My heart pounded, my skin steamed with evaporating sweat. My hot body perspired in blazing torment. As I tried to move anew, the right side of my ribcage stung evilly, impairing my ability to even independently turn in the bed I now lay in. So I kept still, slowly letting my eyes adjust to the new surroundings.

As my vision gradually reclaimed clarity again, the eyeballs were throbbing with a dull, pulsating pain with every beat of my heart. Just as if my blood itself was on fire, the injury provoked a few tears to run down my cheek. I had to squint in order to make the prospect of scanning the room even manageable.

I could not see it, but from what my olfactory senses told me there must have been some alchemical mixture present somewhere. Under the linen blanket that covered a neatly made bed I writhed until I was capable of turning my head. Thereby I espied to my right (for to my left was a wall of basalt brickwork the bed was situated next to) a single, wooden table up against a similar wall with a small stool in front of it. On top of that table were strewn about various parchments the letters written thereon were yet illegible to me from my current angle. Further in the back far off to the right there was a cupboard with two doors and three drawers, all closed.

Tilting my head sideways and then to a small degree forward, so as to make my skull hang in the air diagonally, I glimpsed a lit fireplace, its noisome smell and grating sound immediately provoking grim memories. What lay further down the room or adjacent to the burning logs I could not say, for my bed appeared to be in a tight niche and another, thinner, wall obscured the rest from my view.

I held my heavy head like that for a while but decided to tilt it back into a more comfortable position because apart from the fact that this house presumably was completely windowless, no new revelations could be gathered from further observation.

But just as I strained my muscles to resign my head to rest on the pillow underneath, a knife of pure corruption drove into my neck. And as I failed to contain a shrill howl of agony in response, I picked up on a forebodingly portentous noise. For I heard a raucous shuffling answer my tormented call.


	4. Chapter 4

X

I held my breath, knowing not what to expect. The predicament of having to respirate to avoid asphyxiation while at the same time assuming that any noise I make might result in my immediate demise was troubling beyond conception. Either way, a premonition of unavoidable doom crept through my mangled brain. That was until I heard the voice of whom I conjectured to be my captor.

"Aaah, yes. Yes! Yes! Indeed. Quite indeed though!". A rather quirky voice boomed from behind the wall to my feet. Such an expression was entirely unheard of. Anguish quickly transmuted into curiosity and intrigue. What kind of person would sport such a queer form of articulation? At last, the strange man whom the words spoken belonged to stepped out of the shadows and into my field of view. From his appearance, the white skin, the pointy ears, the slender stature and the gleaming, red eyes, I immediately knew who I was dealing with.

"I see thou'rt awake, Outsider.", he said excitedly with a wicked smile on his face. "Prithee, tell me thy name. I believe introductions are of the importance."

Puzzled, I replied. "Thorus", I wheezed under my breath.

"Aaah, Thorus it is. Now then! The name that was graciously bequeath'd to me and which I have hitherto been call'd by is Shthelith. I crave to impose on thee that making thine acquaintance is pleasurable to the utmost! Last time an Outsider the likes of thee trod our domain was long ago, yes yes…".

The funny character paused his extraordinary speech for a moment and assessed the situation. After Shthelith had scrutinized my injuries, he appeared lost in thought for a short period of time before speaking up again.

"I concern'd my good self with mending thy wounds to the very pinnacle of my ability! However! In order to finalize the healing process, thou must drink from this here goblet, the contents of which I, in fastidious meticulosity, selected by hand while thy consciousness had yet to make back the journey from the lands of phantasm".

He produced a silver goblet from the place I could not see and rambled on.

"Thou belike wond'rest just what ingredients this broth hath. Now, the major part of this here concoction is compris'd of only the finest, most luxurious local herbs thy race most assuredly hath no name for. These are but of minor import. The key component is an ingenious anomaly of nature that our race calleth 'The Golden Drop'. I shall affright thee not with its specifics, lest thou resortest to reject my potion. Thou need'st only know that thou wilt find it an excellent remedy for thine ailments. Prithee, ingest."

And with these words, the queer elf held the goblet up to my lips, beckoning me to drink whatever cure he had been so carefully brewing. Albeit I had been dissuaded somewhat at the mention of the so-called 'Golden Drop', I concluded that I had nothing to lose, prompting me to swallow the bitter liquid.

In a matter of seconds, while it slowly coated my tongue and filled my mouth, the horrible pain my body had been subjected to began to ebb. My fatigue subsided. And although all my of my injuries were not magically closed, I could move my limbs again without fear of paralyzing agony.

I was taken aback by how effective this potion was and I was, at that moment, sure that, had I ingested another, I could have battled whatever beast nearly devoured me all by myself. But Shthelith was quick to warn me of overexertion, for the broth was known to cause euphoria and elation.

"Careful now, Thorus. Thine injuries have not heal'd completely. Thou'rt at risk for the next two sleep cycles. However, past that period, no impairment shall hobble thee."

Truly, I felt thoroughly rejuvenated. Furthermore, my ability to formulate articulate speech in coherent sentences had returned. I used this reclaimed capability to question the strange elven creature.

"Shthelith", I asked, "tell me of the events that transpired. Where am I? And where is Nephethys?"

The pale mer donned an almost menacing grin and proceeded to satisfy my inquiries.

"Thine own reckless manner brought thee hither no doubt. As far as good old Shthelith can tell, ye were too abstracted by the presence of my fair kin to notice how detach'd from the surrounding reality ye were", Shthelith explained. According to him, while Nephethys and I were prowling near the decrepit settlement, a creature his race calls 'Scavenger' snuck up behind us. In our limitless wonder we failed to notice the threat and were only made aware of its presence when it was already too late.

"Savage beasts", he went on, "by far the most prodigious, most perilous hazard on four legs out on the plains. Ye sure are fortunate our Order harbours great witches and wizards. Else, the fate of thee and thy fate would have taken quite the tragic turn indeed". He paused for a moment, gently stroking his chin. He nodded faintly and mumbled " Yes, yes, indeed…" before proceeding.

"As for thy present residence; welcome to my abode", he announced. "After the calamity that has befallen thee so brutally, I just could not let thee expire. So, after my race scatter'd, I took thee under. This house is my studie, laboratorie and home."

I was swiftly taken from elation to confusion with all this information flooding my head. What was it this queer character studied in this barren world? I wondered only briefly, for I had to yet again brace myself for Shthelith's ramblings. I watched him take a deep breath before he continued to speak.

"As for the fate of thy friend, good old me is fairly certain my Order hath taken her to the Chapel of Sárka. Consider thyself lucky. The Aímamer are fond of practices quite abhorred and iniquitous by Tamrielic measurements".

"Iniquitous? Aímamer? Where is Nephethys?", I inquired sharply, growing ever more impatient as time went on. I was intensely in worry for her safety. Everything we heretofore encountered proved itself to be hostile in some capacity after all. The elf enunciated, having noticed my rising temper:

"Worry not! Shthelith knows a way. He always does!"

He turned away from me and went to the still undetectable compartment of his house. In response and with newfound strength, I leaned forward and carefully turned my body to heave my legs out of the bed. As my feet connected with the cold stone floor, I finally saw what stayed hidden from me for so long.

A large bookshelf covered the entire wall. Embedded within said shelf was a quaint desk. On top of which, alchemical formulæ alongside several phials of versicolor appearance. While I was busy inspecting Shthelith's belongings, he spoke further, detailing his race and iterating upon the chapel.

"The Aìmamer are what we call ourselves. Though, for thine understanding I deem it best to use the term 'Blood Elves'".

The mer was busy shuffling through various parchments as he explained to me that the Aímamer were the indigenous race of this world. According to him, the Blood Elves populated this realm ever since its creation. Similar to the Golden Saints and Dark Seducers from the fabled Shivering Isles, the plane of the Daedric prince of madness.

"A long time ago, we called into existence an Order, its name of no concern to thee, devoted to our deity", he explained as manuscripts were torn from the shelves and tossed around, piling up in diverse places. Evidently, my new acquaintance was looking for something.

"And by our deity's help, me and my kin were suddenly capable of tapping into unknown energies to draw from remote planes of existence. The Mundus is one such plane. Only by our rites was it possible for thee to gain entrance to my homeland".

I observed a small number of vials being pushed away by various volumes the elf, in his haste, carelessly placed on the table. Some of the transparent fluid containers tumbled from the table's edge, shattering and spilling their contents on the floor to Shthelith's feet. I heard him curse audibly before he resumed his explanations.

"In respect to thy friend, that burnt elf should be in the clutches of our High Priestess, Sárka", he said, still searching. "What should be of concern to thee is the circumstance that her tibiæ have been alter'd in a manner quite ritualistic to us. Either she is guaranteed survival - or death".

At last, he let out an excited cry of joy, a great, red tome in hand. Shthelith circled around the mess he had made and sat down on the bed beside me

"Look! Gaze! Observe! Wonder! This ancient volume is called the Book of Prayer. Contained therein - our rituals and the bulk of the magicks we use", he said, a strong sense of pride radiating off of his blazing eyes. He benevolently handed the heavy, leather bound book to me and told me to open it. He then ordered me to skip to the twenty first page. As I did, I was struck by awesome wonder at the pages I now beheld. On the left, I could see a visceral scene. A robed figure, apparently torturing another by cutting the flesh off their limbs.

My Blood Elf host then asked forebodingly: "Does this appear familiar to thee?"

It dawned on me. Displayed on that page was the detestable rite Lord Atebid had tormented Nephethys with! I gasped for air in astonishment. My shaking hands almost let the book escape my grasp.

"Aaah yes. I thought as much!", the elf shouted before he stood up again, ripping the volume from my moistening palms.

"I know a Shaping when I see one! The Lord is rumoured to have done it on close to three hundred men and mer in Cyrodiil prior to his return. Didst thou encounter any?"

I nodded in oppressive fear.

"I see. Then it's true. He is the Prophet".

I was as discombobulated as I was terrified. What did this mean? Shthelith eyed me closely, thereby picking up on my speechlessness.

"It is said that only he who heraldeth our advent into the realm of mortals could possibly perform this rite on a strong enough subject. The Lord sought a special vessel to bring back here. Communion with our god - and the eventual transference that ensueth, are his agenda."

The Blood Elf explained to me that Atebid sacrificed all of those poor citizens in an effort to find one strong enough to be used as some form of effigy or vessel. And I knew that Nephethys was nothing if not strong. Perhaps she only survived because Atebid was interrupted and forced to retreat.

Nonetheless, he lured us here with the promise of vengeance when his plan appeared to be to get his vile, callous hands on my Dunmer friend.

I could not let either of these things happen, so I asked Shthelith, whom I began to subconsciously trust, what I should do.

"Thou? Hah! Do not think I would leave thee to thyself! Thou'rt in need of a guide. And good old me is sure to be perfect for that purpose. I shall accompany thee to the Chapel."

He explained to me that, whatever unhallowed processions were being held within their church, either way my fate would he sealed.

"According to this here volume, thy friend will either expire or be assimilated. Both options provided are in no way even remotely beneficial to thee. Thy doom is certain if none action is taken".

I was determined to save Nephethys' life. And so, Shthelith and I began to devise a sound strategy for infiltration and extraction.

XI

I am, by profession, an investigator. During my time in the IID I have been confronted with unforeseeable situations, oftentimes involving breaking into thieves' hideouts or bandit infested caverns. Notwithstanding all of my heretofore acquired experience, Shthelith was quick to bring to my attention that this very experience is void when it came to the Chapel of Sárka. From what he told me, the building had only one guarded entrance and one guarded drain in the back.

I briefly and shudderingly wondered why a church would even need drainage pipes but stopped thinking after taking into account who it was that I was dealing with.

Aside from these two protected and thoroughly closed entrances, the only other means of ingress appeared to be through the towering, multicolored, stained glass windows. The two of us realized, though, that shattering the panes was rather counterproductive.

As we pondered, I felt time's crushing pressure on my shoulders, slowly choking me, a lump in my throat growing ever greater in size while my already profound sorrow deepened itself to unknown abysses never before realized.

What if we were too late? What would happen if the High Priestess were to convince Nephethys to change allegiances? What if she died? Such were the grim vistas haunting my mind when all of a sudden, Shthelith spoke up in excitement.

"I have thought of a grandiose proposition!", he exclaimed at the top of his lungs. "Thou shalt be my sacrificial offer, a gift, to Sárka!".

I was about to expostulate at his madness and already did I draw breath, inhaling with discontent, when the elf silenced me at once.

"No no no! No no! Thou hast misunderstood! Shthelith does mean not to truly bestow thee unto our evil priestess, no no. It shall serveth as trickery to get thee into the church. Once inside, I will release the shackles that will bind thee".

I stopped in bewilderment at his proposal. At this point in time I had not yet been completely sure of his sincere virtue. He may very well have been playing me for a fool no doubt. Sacrificing me to save his own hide, perhaps. However, after considering all possibilities that were offered to me I came to the conclusion that trust was not of the importance, however faint it was. If I remained inert, I could only die. So, in the end, I resolved, albeit teeth-gnashingly, to agree to Shthelith's plan. I had nothing to lose after all.

Preparations for our act of deceit that would hold court over life and death went fast. He envisioned me to become enshackled to uphold the illusion that he captured me out on the plains. When the chapel guard would let us pass, he was to afterward unbind my wrists whereunto I, in turn, had the task of interrupting whatever ritual was being conducted. However, what we refrained from taking into account was the aftermath of the little disturbance that we intended to cause.

"Too many variables", Shthelith iterated, "I can not know what number of members is present within the hall. I have no fathom in respect to Sárka's reaction. Or of how far thy friend is gone - in one way or in another".

The premise of incalculable factors unsettled me whereas Shthelith appeared to be remarkably calm about the oncoming ordeal. He noticed my severe disquiet and attempted to ease my mind by telling me how too much worry might be hobbling in my present situation. I knew this of course.

But even so, I could not shake the feeling that there was one minute detail to this undertaking that my subconscious made every effort to hide from my woke self. A thought, an implication so extraordinarily terrible as to warrant secrecy. A cogitation unreachable, for it lay at the bottom of the well of my inner eye.

Notwithstanding my obscene irritation as a result of my continued contemplation, I decided to follow Shthelith's proposition. What other chance than this did I have?

And so, the two of us braced ourselves for the task at hand.

Before we went out into the neglected settlement, my hands got bound behind my back. Naturally, I have properly armed myself afore, carrying my gladius and Cloudbreaker in my now filthy coat.

"I shall release thine enshacklement upon my first spying an opening to liquidate the threat", he reassured me.

And although I had no way of knowing if the pale elf spoke with sincerity in his heart, I could not help but trust him. Maybe it was his general demeanour that continually chipped away at my prodigious unrest.

After I had been sufficiently prepared, Shthelith armed himself also. He chose a weapon the likes of which I have never seen before. It appeared to be a jagged lance, its blades lined with regular outcroppings likened in appearance to hooks, but all in the portable size of a dagger.

I inquired about what this weapon was.

"This is an Exsanguinator", he elaborated with glee, "It hooketh onto the victim's flesh, impossible to remove without tearing oneself apart. If thou'rt getting stabbed with one of these, thou wilt either bleed out through its built-in canals or murder thyself if an attempt at extraction is made. Quite effective, if a little cumbersome to use in a war. Excellent for assassinations, however", he explained with a bewitching grin of satisfaction.

Confidence in the success of our task surged as soon as I noted how easily he could have killed me at any time. He chose not to. In fact, he deliberately went through the trouble to assist my body in recovery. Trust in his righteousness gained purchase and I began to develop a determination of divine extent. I was sure we could fulfill our quest. With his help at least.

Before we left the confines of his residence, Shthelith explained further that his weapon of choice was specifically designed to eliminate blood mages.

"It has been forged in such a way for it to prohibiteth the magickal recreation of flesh. It is enchanted to drain all magicka and all blood from the target's body. Moreover, if removed, the injury caused is in most cases great enough to bring upon instant death."

Even blood mages out here in this remote region appear to rely on magicka to cast spells and make use of their witchcraft. Truly, this aetherial energy indeed seems to pervade all things.

After making sure we were prepared to the utmost, we at last stepped outside.

XII

The feeble wooden door of Shthelith's house closed behind us as my eyes were met with a vista of rundown dwellings of various shapes and sizes. Shthelith led me through crooked alleys and crudely constructed roads. Looking around me, I espied several sceptical, red gazes from behind doors partly ajar while we traversed the dry grounds.

At last, the chapel came into view, the slightly bent tower visible from afar, amidst the crumbling roofs, plagued by a long history of disuse and weathering, of this sorry excuse for a village. I finally rested my orbs on the great archway of this unsaintly temple and wondered just what kind of forbidden, secret deity might be revered here. These wondrous cogitations were quickly swept away by waves of concern however, for Nephethys' life was at stake.

I surveyed the entrance, guarded by one cultist whose face I didn't recognize and a thing that I had seen before - a Guardian. This nightmarish creature we, Nephethys and I, had encountered before in the horror-infested Ayleid ruins underneath the Imperial City.

The two of us carefully approached the guards. I inspected the armored Guardian whereunto I was reminded of my own mortality. Suddenly, a most infandous dread was made manifest inside my quivering mind as one question lingered with evil persistence; the one query my subconscious had been trying to hide from me all this time.

What _if_ I died here? What fate would befall my aching soul should I meet my end? I had, up to this point, suspected that I was outside Mundus. If not, at least outside Nirn. Most certainly not within one of the planes of either Oblivion or Aetherius. This harrowing circumstance gave me reason enough to believe myself outside the jurisdiction of either of the two aforementioned planes of existence and their associated deities.

What if it was true? Would I be trapped here upon expiry, damned to interminably tread these grounds? Or would my soul simply be taken to the Void or the Darkness of Sithis? Did Sithis even reach here?

Yet again, the inquiries mounted. But I was pulled back into reality, if reality it was, by the chatter of Shthelith and the other cultist.

"What is thy desire?", a deep, almost droning voice asked.

"Oh! Ah! Thladth! I have persecuted this here prisoner. It seemes to originate from the same realm as that particulately shaped one ye captured earlier. I do believe Sárka can find a good use for its blood!", Shthelith enunciated. Although he called me an 'it', which, admittedly, hurt my emotions to an extent as I was reduced to a mere creature through his speech, I knew that it only served to form an elaborate ruse. I could tell that he was lying rather bluntly to that Thladth character. But even so, the other cultist was none the wiser.

"Oh Shthelith. Thou must exert caution around our High Priestess. Thou dost not want her to heareth thee abuse her name in such casual fashion. But if thou insistest, prithee, present thy sacrifice to her. If thou'rt lucky, her Highness might not consume thy blood for disturbing the rite."

With these words, the two of us gained admission to the Chapel of Sárka. The heavy doors swung open as Shthelith pushed me through rather brutally, and we claimed ingress.

Before my eyes unfolded a scene of profound terror. I beheld Nephethys, paralyzed and limbs fastened to the four corners of an altar fashioned from a marbly-white stone on which she lay. This ritualistic piece of furniture stood at the far end of the great hall we had just entered.

There was a carpet woven from scarlet strands of fabric, about a meter in width, stretching in length across the entire fifty meters of the room. On either side it was lined with rows of slowly crumbling, wooden benches that were perfectly aligned with the enormously tall, cyclopean stained glass windows depicting scenes of misery, despair and gruesome beings not to be described, tinging the entire space in a marvellous splendour of gold, lilac, emerald and ruby.

The benches themselves were, to my relief, vacant. In between the benches, the high ceiling was supported by erect buttresses of light grey masonry, at their central compartment carved into the shape of female humanoids with arms outstretched upwards and grand, golden candlesticks in front of them. The impressively ginormous ceiling was built with salient rib vaults that disembogued into the internal feminine buttresses, bringing to my attention the utmost effort that has been put into the construction of the church in spite of its relatively small size.

Each of the indentations in between the ribs of the prodigiously sized brickwork was decorated with a beauteous fresco depicting the landmarks we designated for acquisition of the three seals we needed to unlock the gate to the city of Bendicia. From each of the points in their respective centers hung a great chandelier of gold, their candle holders molded into the form of perfect trapezohedrons containing white, lit candles illuminating the area.

For the last stretch of the carpet, three stairs led up to an unoccupied lectern, behind which the altar rested in malevolent grandeur. Directly behind the stone podium that supported it was an empty space of about five meters squared containing only a ladder which presumably led up to the tower of this chapel. Scanning the wall, I let my eyes wander up the ladder whereby I noticed a great rose window, a few meters before the wall I inspected vanished out of sight. The circular piece of vitreous art shewed a thing that I could not interpret. I was certain that I could make out what looked like a head, torso and claws, but consisting of strangely triangular lines and geometric shapes. I averted my eyes in confusion and instead focused on the altar in front of the space I just surveyed.

A robed woman stood before the structure, her back facing us. She held a gleaming dagger of ebony with silver linings in her right, and a darkly radiating red orb hovering above her left hand. As we entered with some clamour, a gust of wind wound itself through the hall. In response, the figure turned around to focus her attention on us. When she did, I could observe that her garments were not dissimilar to those Shthelith and Thladth donned.

However, hers featured additional, spiked pauldrons, connected to a bladed collar protecting her neck, forged also from ebony. Her hands were enshrouded in bladed, metal gloves of the same material, as was her crown, at the top of which protruded from her pulled down, crimson cowl three jetty black talons.

The woman reacted swiftly, with agitation tracing our every step.

"Halt!", she ordered, "what purpose hath brought ye hither? Shthelith! What miscreated creature hast thou dragg'd into my sacred fane? Explain thyself!", the High Priestess boomed, unmistakably furious at his rude interruption of the woeful act she had prepared.

My new elven friend cackled hubristically, staring back at her glaring eyes, burning with disgust. Thereafter he spoke: "My Mistress! Good old Shthelith never means harm! I came here to bequeath to you this humble gift. I believe you can make good use of its Mundus blood."

Sárka looked at us in discontent, sheathing her dagger and dispelling the crimson sphere.

"I must punish Thladth, it seems. He hath refused the imperative given to him one too many times. But foremost, I shall have thy blood for this impertinent disruption!", she threatened before dissolving into a thin, red mist, gathering into a viscous puddle.

Moments later, the bloody Mistress rematerialized behind us, dagger in hand. She launched herself at Shthelith who, in that instant, proved to be fiendishly agile. In the very same second, he unlocked my chains and deflected Sárka's strike with his blood draining instrument of torment. I seized this opportunity and drew my gladius.

I consciously used the lapse in the High Priestess' concentration to swing my blade at her, causing a mild laceration on her left forearm while she was preoccupied with dodging his Exsanguinator. Following her injury, despondence rose in me as I watched the wound close shortly after. Knowing that failure to defeat this diabolical adversary was not an option drove me to continue the fight regardless.

Sárka pushed my newfound companion away several meters with astounding might, turning her back on him to face me. And lo, her face was filled with implacable hatred.

Crimson fumes perspired from her offhand. I gasped for air. I knew this witchcraft all too well. The Bloodwraith in Cyrodiil cursed me with its red hand before. Adrenaline surged and I narrowly avoided her radiant palm by mere inches. In response, I tumbled to the ground as my feet gave way under my not fully healed injuries. I fell into one of the church benches whereunto it came crashing down with me.

While I was busy to remove the wooden splinters, great and small, from my hands and arms, Shthelith did his utmost to defend me. He knew that his very own life was on the line, just as much as mine and Nephethys'.

"Thou'rt a traitorous devil. I shall condemn thee to perpetual torment at the hands of Thellur!", Sárka yelled, readying a crimson orb in her fist as she expertly materialized around Shthelith's continued assault.

Whoever Thellur was I did not know, but the notion of 'perpetual torment' was an ill omen indeed.

Ere I could stand up again, I beheld a writhing Nephethys, still chained to the altar. To my dismay, I could not release her without the corresponding key that was indubitably with the priestess. I could likewise not count on her proficient aid in this battle. No. This time, I had to prove my worth, absolve myself of my sins and stand my own ground against this mad dæmon.

I regained courage and rushed forth, driving my sword into distracted Sárka's back as she was about to sap Shthelith's life with the red sphere she had just conjured up, penetrating her abdomen. She screeched but was muted by Shthelith who drove the Exsanguinator through her sternum. As he let go of its hilt, the High Priestess spoke only three words, albeit of prophetic import:

"You ignorant fools".

She was pronounced mad by us when she tightened her grip around the hooked and bladed lance. We believed her attempt at extraction farcical. We already considered ourselves victorious. We were wrong.

Sárka pulled out the weapon with prodigious strength, her chest exploding as a result. Her ribs and their attached flesh stretched sideways, then up, beating like wings. In their wake a copious number of bloody droplets sprayed and splattered everywhere. She flew into the air, hovering above us.

At this point, I witnessed her left arm split apart, its two halves contorting and elongating, transmogrifying themselves into whipping tendrils. Her bones broke several times over, their sharp and pointy edges jutting out of the new extremities. As they swayed back, forth and back again, I saw that a devil had been born.

With incomprehensible rancor did the malformed High Priestess, her pulsating heart exposed and her guts and organs hanging free under the beating wings that kept her afloat, cast the Exsanguinator towards Shthelith who ducked under it just in time. A piece of cloth from his hood got carried away, impaled on the great double door of the church that slammed shut a while ago.

The ongoing commotion had arrested the attention of the guards outside, resulting in Thladth and that Guardian to break down the doors.

The other blood elf looked at his priestess and Shthelith in shock before he went on to make petty excuses.

"Mistress! I have been deceiv'd by this blasphemous traitor!", he shouted. An unexpectedly deep and raspy voice replied from over us.

"Bring me his head and thy soul might be redeem'd, free of thy mortal sin!"

With the order to kill received, the two of them assumed combat stances and assailed my friendly Aímamer. I was left to battle the detestable thing that had just arisen alone. I could no longer rely on Shthelith's support, since he was very much occupied with defending himself against the fresh peril that had been added in.

I gathered all the strength I could muster, tightened the grip around my gladius' hilt and prepared to fight a war I was unsure of winning. Sárka's tendrils swung at me in a wide berth continuously. I managed to evade several strikes before I was hit with crushing force in my already weakened side, causing me to stumble about. I steadied my footing however, the pain still numbed by the concoction I was given.

With impetuosity, and loathing in her likeness, the dæmon buried her tentacles into the ground. I attempted to cut one of them off when the flooring before me expectorated one of the limbs to intercept me, pushing me away with superior might.

Entire rows of benches broke in my wake as I slid across the marbly floor of the chapel. I cast a short glance over to my battle companion and observed that he had not only reclaimed his deathly instrument. I watched as he already extracted it from Thladth's body, shredding it to pieces. His life got extinguished ad hoc.

Shthelith still had to worry about the opposition of the steel plated Guardian. I watched my bloodied friend defend himself and then got up, recovering from my daze.

Sárka loomed above the pools of blood that had formed in the meantime, latent evil emanating off of her. She launched a barrage of glowing projectiles at me, her tendrils still burrowed deep underground. One of the projectiles pierced my calf. Defiant, I suicidally went towards her with a limp in refusal of giving myself up that easily. With considerable trouble I avoided being sliced into pieces by a tendril that shot up from the ground as I drew closer to my destination. Finally, I deflected an almost fatal blow with my sword's edge, separating one of the tentacles from its host.

It squirmed a while before it stopped moving altogether. In any other instance this probably would have made me sick, if not for the mortal danger I found myself in.

Before she could retaliate I almost heroically jumped at her other dæmoniac limb, putting myself in harm's way to perchance remove it quickly enough.

The Divines must have smiled on me that day, for I managed to sever its connection to Sárka's body before it had a chance of driving its osseous tip into my heart.

The High Priestess had been weakened. That was when I remembered that I still had a bullet left in my Cloudbreaker. She hovered in place, channeling her blood magic to heal her injuries and reattach the lost tendrils. She was painfully unaware of the judgement I would hail down upon her. In a moment of inadvertence, when that Mistress of outer pits of darkness averted her hellish gaze, preposterously certain of her invulnerability, I aimed my weapon at her, ready to cast forth virtuous retribution.

Suddenly, she looked at me in utter puzzlement. Then, a thunderous noise tore asunder the sound of battle, leaving nothing but serene silence. I watched her body implode, a hole as great as a Nord's head taking residence where her heart of malignity used to beat to the rhythm of otherworldly corruption.

Her eyes widened, her mouth agape, though mute with terror and disbelief. Not long after, she came falling down from the ceiling like a flock of birds caught by a poisonous cloud. A deafening crack of fracturing bones announced her impact as the shadow of death claimed her.

The thing that was the Guardian got distracted by the thunderclap. Long enough for Shthelith to find a weak spot betwixt its protective plates of armor to drive his weapon into and immediately retract, ripping it apart.

An eerie silence held dominion. Only our cumbersome breathing and the cold-hot breeze flowing in from outside disturbed the stoic stillness.

Shthelith and I triumphantly smiled at each other, but all was not yet done.

Exhausted from the combat I collapsed to the floor. My vision went blurry, my ears rung, but I held fast, crawling towards Sárka's corpse on all fours. After pushing away some dead meat, I at last found what I sought. A key, forged from ebony. I crept over to the altar, up the stairs, and unlocked the locked locks.

Nephethys, now set free, immediately ran towards Shthelith with murderous intent. I collected myself and went after her as fast as I was able. I grabbed her hand at the last second, pulling her back. "Stop!", I entreated her.

She was flung into my arms. The sheer speed she had morphed into a mighty crash that brought both of us down.

"That elf helped me back up on my feet", I aspirated, "and he is responsible for your freedom. Together, we have slain the fiends that held you captive".

Her eyes watered. "I thought you had forsaken me!", she sobbed, "I believed you were dead!". Tears streamed like a salty cataract down her cheeks as she pressed her quaking body against mine.

"I can't lose you. You vowed to never leave my side! I…", is all she was able to mutter when her emotions reigned supreme and threw her into a fit of crying in cruel bitterness.

Consolingly, I stroked the back of her head when she rested her wet face on my shoulder.


	5. Chapter 5

XIII

For the longest time, all was perfectly still inside the tainted chapel. Sárka had been slain, Nephethys freed from her clutches. And all of this thanks to Shthelith, who turned out to be a much friendlier companion notwithstanding his antiquated speech and minorly disturbed demeanor.

He appeared to be no stranger to combat either. As such, I already knew that he would make quite the addition to our group of outcasts to retrieve the unholy artifacts of this damned land.

Several minutes passed by and we still held each other tightly while Shthelith occupied himself with shuffling through the corpses on the hunt for supplies.

Nephethys soon lifted her blushed and moistened face from my shoulder to gaze into my heart and soul with her beautiful, red, Dunmer eyes.

"I missed you so much", she said, sniffling somewhat. The prospect of holding in her tears wore greatly on her. But as I should soon discover, she tried to avoid shewing weakness at all costs. And for a reason.

I replied, consolingly: "I know. And this is why I came for you. I've risked my life to save yours".

She smiled softly, the usual confidence her eyes gave off gradually returning. I could tell that all words spoken mattered not to her so long as I was there. It was this aura of loving, warm hearted familiarity that surrounded us. No. It was an aura of _family._

I gently let my shaking fingers stroke her pure, white hair as Shthelith suddenly chimed in, to an extent destroying the pleasant atmosphere.

"Thou'rt hurt, Thorus. I believe however, that, combining my blood magic with the recently acquired, magical acumen of thy friend, we can mend thee to spare thee of two naps precisely!"

Excitedly, he came up to us and extended his opened palm to Nephethys.

"Shthelith is my name. I have procured thy friend from among the dust and provided him refuge and recovery, yes yes…", he said, beckoning her to shake hands. My ashen friend stared at me with some ambiguity, indubitably due to the nature of my newfound compatriot. I nodded reassuringly to testify that this particular Blood Elf can be trusted. After all, I had no reason not to confess my allegiance to my saviour.

With hesitation, she made her hand meet his. When they connected, something awe-inspiring took place. Both of them got engulfed by a fog of bright red and incandescently luminous white. Tiny wisps of the same coloration playfully danced a dance of benign purpose. Swirling and twirling around in the air, the wisps flowed into the two of them, rapidly alternating betwixt the Dunmer and the Aímamer.

I wondered, then, if the merish races shared some magical connexion with each other. Or if it was the blood that bound them. Regardless of the true reasons behind this marvellous spectacle of light and the all-pervading energy, I could feel the surrounding air vibrate intensely.

The two of them now extended their hands to me. I grabbed them and was subsequently filled with comfort, warmth and strength. I felt how my skin and the flesh and bones beneath it moved around on their own, propelled by this unique ritual.

The next moment, the blinding luminescence faded, the autonomous movement of my substance and fabric stopped. And with it, all pain, or the remnants thereof, subsided. The two elves eyed me in anticipation. After some scrutiny by Shthelith, he exclaimed: "It worked! I never did this ritual before. As such I had no knowledge of its true extent. Marvellous, simply marvellous!".

"What exactly did you do just now?", Nephethys asked with a suspicion-infused undertone.

"I have focus'd thy magickal force and attun'd it to my own via the blood, essentially channeling our combin'd energy. After all, blood magic is what me and my fair kin are born and raised with. And through a rather unsaintly rite", he hinted at Nephethys' tibiæ, "Thou hast acquir'd such properties as well".

When Shthelith explained what was happening, it dawned on me why Nephethys was capable of casting certain spells every now and then. Notwithstanding that her body got bereaved of its lower legs in their traditional form, she had come into possession of strengths and talents unheard of. Most power-hungry mages I came across would have gladly sacrificed one or two body parts for such prodigious might.

But I also knew that Nephethys was not fully in control of her new blood. Perhaps, I thought, Shthelith could teach her a thing or two along the way.

Nephethys stared at him, lost in thought. After a while she drew breath and said: "So you say my Blood is now capable of influencing magic in a similar fashion that yours does?"

Shthelith nodded corroboratingly and began to lecture her about the nature of magic.

"That is correct. Thou must be aware, though, that blood is what conducteth and distributeth magicke throughout thy body in the first place. It is the reason thou'rt able to cast any spell at all. However! In addition, thou'rt now able to not only let the magicke flow through it, but use the blood itself as a source of power to tap into".

Nephethys looked strangely pleased in response. There was a spark in her eyes that I could not explain away. Its genuineness was unmistakable. That spark in her gleaming eyes was the start of a fire - the fire of terrible revenge.

"Very good", she then remarked with a sinister intonation. I told myself not to worry too much about her state of mind. She had not been a Dark Brotherhood assassin for nothing. But shrugging off the sense of something being not right about her following this revelation proved to be absolutely impossible. Just as I could detect the potential iniquity in some individuals, could I now feel her raw, unabridged loathing perspire through her pupils. She had changed. Irrevocably so, I suspected.

My contemplation towards Nephethys' evolution and my inherent contempt towards it were swiftly washed away by the ensuing chatter, forcing me to listen.

"Good old Shthelith observeth the rancor growing in thy heart, grey one. I beseech thee to control it, lest thou assaultest thy allies. Like a vampire doth in their fledgling state, craving every bit of life force available, not differentiating betwixt friend or foe. Dost thou understand?".

"Yes, Shthelith. My destructive energy shall rain down upon those who would attempt harm or incarceration upon me, you or Thorus ever again. I will obliterate our enemies", Nephethys droned.

Her tone of voice was dreadfully off. Something was inside her. Something darker than her murderous heritage, even. To such an extent as to make her appear to lose the sense of her usual self. Soon, she would notice the sorrow that took a hold of my countenance and made an attempt at reassurance herself.

"Have no fear, my love. For with this, I can protect us both better than ever before".

Her voice softened and she returned to her usual mannerisms as soon as she addressed me. It seemed as though my presence had had a calming effect on her soul.

"I feel more confident now than in my entire life, Thorus. Are you not elated to see me like this?".

I smiled and nodded.

"Yes, I am. I am glad you've come to terms with your affliction, however vile. You are the strongest person I ever met. You will stand tall, no matter the situation. This I know".

I gently stroked her cheeks and pure fortitude flooded my body.

Her white teeth sparkled as she grinned with glee.

"I always had to be strong", she said, " For I never had it easy. I committed my first act of murder at the age of fifteen out of disdain for…", she paused, thinking, then continued: "For someone. There was much that happened up to that point, you know. And I could stand it no longer. But I was stronger, always had to be. And then, one night, the Brotherhood found me".

Her voice began to break as she reminisced about her bygone youth.

"I…", she exhaled deeply, "Just don't let anybody take me away, I beg of you".

She wiped small tears from her face before regaining composure.

"I have put my own life at risk once, I will do it again. We stand together as one, Nephethys", I said.

We sealed this agreement, born from mutual affection, with an embrace that made both our hearts pound against each other, feeding off one another's love to strengthen our spirits. A soft, tender kiss, silent in its holy serenity, bound our fates together.

After our very own ritual concluded, Shthelith spoke up, again disrupting our calm aura.

"Hear ye! Sárka hath expired. However, we must get into possession of the Ancient Word as well. If we intend to enter the city, that is".

He was right, we needed to acquire the word. But first, we had to know where it was located.

"I propose we scour the chapel. The tower, specifically. Who can say what we might find?", he then announced.

Nephethys and I got up from the ground and espied the ladder leading up to our destination. The three of us gathered and together, we approached the relatively small space in comparison to the otherwise quite pompous architecture.

One after the other, we climbed up the metal rungs of the slightly shaky construct to reach the top of the tower. I was last in line.

At about a third of the way, the great rose window depicting the thing of angular lines and triangular shapes came into view, tinting my pale skin in a gay splendor.

The window gave off a portentous vibration and I felt that it had been placed there, painted in the way that it was, for a reason apart from mere decorative purposes. But what exactly that other purpose was I should not come to know until much later.

Right before I reached the roof truss' space I could already hear the footsteps of my two allies on the arguably thin, wooden floor above me. Due to their weight, dust particles dislodged themselves from in betwixt the bent cracks, trickling down onto me, constituting a layer of filth on my shoulders.

After a few more pulls on the iron rungs I emerged, pushing myself up the ledge of the feeble flooring.

Instead of a great bell or a shrine to the deity in question, as I've grown accustomed to in Cyrodiil, I was met with a wholly different sight.

The confined space was of a foursquare shape, a tiny, clear window on each side illuminating the area. The dark brown brickwork was accentuated by a red, peaked roof and even darker floorboards.

In its center stood a lone pillar of jetty black rock, about waist-height, carved into the shape of seven intertwining, spiralling tentacles. Upon them sat a square plate, thick as a finger, perched on which a rectangular box the size of a mead bottle in height and width.

It appeared to have been fashioned from pure gold, its light-refracting surface plunging the room in a luxurious hue of different shades of decadence. The artifact was distinctly ornate, with queer engravings of symbols and glyphs I was unable to even remotely recognize or decipher.

As it was, I had severe trouble to ascertain which side of it I was looking at. I shot a quick gaze over to my companions and saw that they were, like me, utterly stunned by the surrounding sparkle.

I approached the unusual thing and only when I got closer did I notice the absence of any hinges. Intrigued by its curious design, I touched it, trying everything I could think of to open it somehow.

After a couple of failed attempts, I at last figured out that its front side acted as a cover one has to shove upwards to reveal its contents. What I found to be quite marvellous about its intricate workmanship was the fact that, once sealed, the golden box appeared to be entirely seamless.

Stalling no longer, I lifted the cover, quite heavy due to it being made entirely of gold, and took a peek at its insides.

Contained within I found a transparent trapezohedron, made from some sort of gem, embedded in a silky, black cushion that filled the remainder of the otherwise unoccupied space.

I reached out, grabbing it with my fingertips. As I did, the omnipresent light of an invisible sun struck the shape whereunto it changed in colour to shine in an iridescent lustre.

The new gleam threw gay, glistening spots on the walls, transforming the room into a visual festivity of bewitching scintillation. I was taken aback by the almost paralyzing pulchritude.

After a while, my mind snapped back to reality. As the enchantment wore off, I stashed it away in my coat to leave only the aurum shades to exert their dominance once again.

My allies had evidently been just as enchanted as I, for I witnessed their absent minded stares of bewilderment fade and return to normal as the ethereal rainbows disappeared.

Shthelith stepped up to me, and in reverence, remarked:

"Such splendour. Indeed, methinks thou couldst startle potential enemies with this stone".

He pondered for a moment and continued:

"I have observ'd this special shape as being a salient feature in this structure's architectural design principles. Belike it is a key of some capacity?"

Indeed, the chandeliers and candlesticks did have such trapezohedrons to support their waxen contents.

"You have a point", I acquiesced and together, we descended the ladder again, past the gloomy, ill-boding rose window, and arrived at the altar.

I inspected the construct more closely now. I slid my palm across its smooth surface and ornate sides and edges until I noticed a singular indentation on the side that faced the tower.

After feeling my way around it became clear that it absolutely must be a perfect fit for the recently acquired gem.

I produced the trapezohedron from within my coat, prompting it to shine beautifully in the already colourful illumination of the great hall. Then, I inserted it into the hole I had found.

With a _click_ it fastened itself as an ornament within the religious platform. I took a few steps back, cautious as to what might happen.

The gem would soon begin to emit a blinding whiteness, increasing in intensity every second.

First, I had to squint, then shut my eyes completely in order to avoid losing my sight, for it was unbearably bright, like a star in the night sky, burning itself through my eyelids so that I at last had to cover them with my hands in protection.

Thereafter, bit by bit, it darkened again until my eyes were finally able to adjust to a more common level of brightness.

As I reopened the lids, I witnessed the stone construct, now bearing the gem, move on its own. It slid off to the right, chafing away at the bloodied ground, until a rectangular aperture began to take its place among sounds of rock grinding on rock.

Another, louder _click_ announced the end of the altar's movement.

Before us now lay another ladder, leading down into the bowels of the church. From it, fumes emerged, carrying forth an odor I knew all too well. And with no visible light sources in sight, the three of us prepared ourselves for a journey into the unknown dark below.

XIV

Shthelith, Nephethys and I descended the cold rungs amidst hot and dry air. Even down there, the universally tormenting climate that the world never failed to shew to us seemed to persist with relentless perseverance.

I was, upon touching the ground of the pitch black, lightless, subterranean space, left to ask myself just what it was that pervaded this world, and every aspect of it, with such torture.

My mind was quickly drawn away from these thoughts at the impenetrable shadow of the place I was situated in. I had greater things to worry about. Somehow, it was as if I breathed foul water the moment I set foot into this new location. And in hindsight, I wish it was not so. I wish I had never seen what I was about to witness.

I had no conjecture in respect to my actual whereabouts or the nature thereof. I was blind. The only thing, apart from the oppressive humidity, that I was able to distinctly perceive was the moist stench of iron and bile that almost felt indigenous to wherever I stood in that moment.

Shthelith's voice, muffled by the walls that enveloped our group, occasionally disturbed by a rhythmic pulse from far away, broke the uncanny atmosphere.

"Welcome to the Crypt of Sárka. 'tis a place only few witness'd with their own eyes. Fewer yet emerged from here still alive. Me? I have never been here afore. I never knew whence the entrance lay, either."

I could hear him fumble about before the area suddenly got deprived of any darkness that might have taken up residence within those depths, for he cast a torch spell to light our path.

A queer emotion of ambiguity spread through my mind, then, as I wished for both decent visibility to be able to navigate the crypt and for my Blood Elf to extinguish his guiding flame so that I might be spared of the vista that unfolded before me.

When the light gained purchase, the sepulchre was lit to reveal its disconcerting contents. To my utmost disgust, the room we were in appeared to be entirely made of _flesh_. The ground, walls and ceiling were _pulsating_, vibrating and exceedingly _warm_ and _soft_ to the touch, save for the occasional, ginormous vein running across beneath the thick skin, visibly pumping some fluid through in nauseating waves. From them streamed liquids of various stages of putrefaction, spreading an unbelievable fœtor among the wet air.

At the end of the room lay a great maw the size of a doorway, lined with sharp teeth along its edges, continually contracting in a sickening fashion.

In the room's center a closed hole made from pure muscle tissue was embedded into the floor. Small rivers of what I suspected to be very viscous saliva ran towards it.

As I looked around me, I noticed the alarming absence of furniture or even other lifeforms. Only then did it dawn on me that our group had haphazardly trod into what must have been a living creature that digested its food inside the very space we stood in with growing apathy, paralyzed by the impossibility of such a thing even existing on Nirn - or anywhere else for that matter.

Just as I was about to voice my suspicions, I felt a painful burn on the underside of my right foot. In surprise, I pulled it up to inspect the fresh wound. By how it formed, it looked like a nasty rash born from some corrosive substance that had burned itself through the middle part of my boot's sole.

Shthelith noticed this and drew his very own conclusions, making his concern heard:

"By the blood! Thorus, Nephethys! We stepped into the bowels of a Shredmound! Ye must hurry! Thorus! Thou possessest a sword! Quick! Cleave at the door!".

He pointed his index finger at the perpetually contracting mass of flesh and teeth in the back.

Consciously, I stalled not and produced my trusty blade from its scabbard. I traversed the way-giving, alive floor with some difficulty, stepping into slimy puddles as I stumbled on my way to the exit. Nephethys and Shthelith followed me closely.

When I reached the gate, the disgusting hole in the center of the room opened behind us and expectorated a vicious horror of crudely stuck together flesh with all manner of malformed appendages, mindlessly running towards us with a hundred gnawing mouths covering its surface.

The malice in this realm knew no bounds. In despondence, I came to realize that clemency had no place in this unholy plane of existence.

I averted my panicked gaze from the maliciously shambling form to instead focus on opening the salivating, steaming maw before me.

First, I drove my Gladius deep into its raw meat, causing a waterfall of blood to spurt forth, running down its skin and staining me and my already gritty coat even further.

Then, I twisted the blade to assume a diagonal angle whereupon I let it slice asunder the hideous abomination. I looked behind me after having cleared a path to witness Nephethys jump into the air in a twirling motion, legs outstretched in great agility, cutting the hulking monster that followed us into a myriad of small pieces, after which it fell apart completely.

I observed it collapse into a disordered pile of coarse meat and partly disintegrated bones before our group made haste to claim egress.

Finally, we could breathe untainted air again. All of us panted heavily after this ordeal. Nephethys seemed especially displeased and inquired disdainfully: "What by Sithis was that?".

Shthelith, conspicuously shaken from fear as well, responded: "That was... what my kind calleth a Shredmound", he explained, "A parasitic life form indigenous to our world. But instead of infesting other organisms, as a parasite doth, a Shredmound infesteth structures. It nesteth itself into a door frame and groweth from there into the smaller of the two rooms available to it".

Nephethys shook her head and stared at him in disbelief.

"My good self suspecteth that this specimen in particular hath not grown to full adulthood. Otherwise, the entrance to this here sepulchre would have been seal'd by its flesh - or another maw", he added in a scholarly and sophisticated tone.

"This is insane, this is pure madness", Nephethys uttered under her breath, barely audible.

Her very spirit seemed to have been thoroughly excoriated by all that had transpired up to that point. Truth be told, I had never expected to be in a foreign dimension, fighting for survival. But there we were, horrified and scared like children in a winding forest at night, in which incomprehensible entities concealed their presences within the hollowed-out trees, preying on them, waiting amidst the decaying barks of bent vegetation. There was no hiding it any longer.

As mentally resilient as we had been, nothing could have prepared us for such sanguine blight.

To provide mutual comfort to us both, I laid my arm around her shoulders and pressed her body against mine. Thereupon her breath slowed down after she inhaled deeply, calming her exasperated nerves to a somber slumber of solace. After a few moments, she nodded in taciturnity and smiled. After all, everybody needs a little warmth otherwhile.

Now, we felt emotionally prepared for whatever it was we might face down there. Shthelith stood by, watching out for possible hazards during our recovery. I relieved him of his benevolent guard duty with a short "Let us move".

We had just exited what I can now, by reminiscence, describe as a _living room_, finding ourselves peering into a dimly illuminated hallway. It was fairly devoid of any salient features excluding a brooding blackness that bubbled in latent evil beyond the rays of the Blood Elves' magically conjured lustre.

As we started to carefully tread the shadowy, underground corridor of grey brickwork, the Aímamer arrested our attention with a word of warning:

"Good old me hath no fathom as to the actual extent of the crypt. It may be constructed of only one layer, or of multiple. Be wary you two. This may be a longer or shorter trip."

Nephethys and I understood that this journey might he terribly tiresome. Then again, had not every trip in these lands been as such?

All of us ingested some water to stay hydrated, whereupon we made our way deeper into the large entombment.

Much to our surprise, along our path we were not assailed by fœtid odors as was usually the case with mausoleums of this proportion.

However, we did notice some kind of _effect_ that demanded its fair share of our dispirited souls. Going ever deeper unto unholy soil, our bodies trembled, faintly at first, but stronger the further we went. While initially barely noticeable, by the time we had descended the first staircase into the second layer of the structure, our blood started to feel as if it sought to move on its own.

Unsettled, we turned to Shthelith in our search for answers, since he appeared to be strangely unaffected. He massaged his chin for a bit afore he formulated a rather perplexing, albeit enlightening, response:

"Well, well… yes… Well, perhaps the blood ye have within is not attun'd correctly to this place's magical frequency".

We had no idea as to the meaning of this, so we inquired further. The Blood Elf then explained to us that most places, at least in his world, resonated with its surroundings in a particular, magical frequency. It's an energy that continuously oscillates in and around these locations.

He hypothesized that our alienage from this plane of existence might be the reason for our present unrest. Moreover, it posed the answer to the question as to why we felt as miserable as we did the moment we set foot into this country.

"But worry ye not", he said, consolingly, "This effect is but temporary. Stay here long enough and ye will find such symptoms disappear".

Although we were still upset a little, we were content enough with that explanation.

We continued forward and espied, on this second floor, another hallway. This time, it sported two grand doorways on either side, directly opposite to each other, seeping from them indiscernible fumes.

"Methinks we are now in the main part of the crypt. Where the burials took place", Shthelith announced grimly in a kind of hushed whisper that made his voice raspy with residual mucus within his throat.

As if out of sheer instinct, the three of us armed ourselves in anticipation of combat with untold nightmares.

We trod with utmost care towards the two apertures. I could feel my heart beating almost maniacally at the premise of what lay beyond these gates while I felt the cold stone on my exposed sole of the foot. To our chagrin, due to the disadvantageous architectural givens, our group was in danger to be attacked from both sides.

On the fly we devised a sound enough strategy under considerable psychological strain in these harrowing conditions, because even the act of thinking straight and clear thoughts proved to be less and less feasible under the pressure of the hostile vibrations, lending a causality betwixt our growing fatigue and a newly developed oscillatory instability of ourselves.

Nephethys and I were to hug the wall on our right, whereas Shthelith assumed his position on the left hand side. Together, we crept ever so slowly in the direction of the hungrily waiting archways.

By the time we reached the very edge of the openings, I thought that any _thing_ that may or may not lurk beyond them, provided they were equipped with a sufficient enough array of senses, vision, at the very least, must have already spotted our approach - or at least the stray beams of the Aímamer's radiance that shone so strongly as to banish any lingering shades in the forsaken corners of this burial palace.

Being uneasily nervous at this cogitation, I reluctantly peered around the weathered brick corner. Both terror and relief flooded my brain in equal measure, for I could spy an entity not dissimilar to the one that Nephethys had torn to shreds earlier.

These morbid jests of nature fortunately appeared to be suffering from general sensory deprivation. Amidst their vaguely held together lumps of flesh, I could see neither eyes, ears nor a nose. I realized that their amaurosis and utter lack of olfactory glands permitted us to roam about the adjacent rooms freely. Or so I thought.

On Shthelith's side there stood one of the flesh things, two of them loitering on mine and Nephethys'. I made my move and dared to take a few steps towards them, into the room, my lover, who had put her trust in my judgement, following suit.

We felt safe, treading our respective paths. However, it turned out to be a fatal misconception. These monsters, in spite of their shape, retained a remarkably well functioning sense of where everything was in relation to them. From what Shthelith had told us earlier about the blood and how it resonated with the environment, I suspected that to be the reason as to why. If my assumptions were correct, they were capable of sensing those vibrations, enabling them to move around regardless.

Intent on inspecting the area, we approached the horrors in our farcical belief in safety. In one moment, they just stood there, mouths biting the air, their surfaces dripping and steaming.

In the next, they rapidly dashed towards us with a disturbingly unnatural gait and an eerie yaw.

I took note of vicious claws that came down upon me. My reflexes were quick though, and I parried the assault with my sword to sever the hand from its body.

Its muscles pulsed vilely in response, for even though it sported a prodigious number of maws, it could not scream.

Next to me, Nephethys defended herself quite adequately. Having observed her somersault over the creature to inflict terrible retaliation, worry was swept away. I knew I had nothing to fear, neither for her nor for me.

From my angle, I did not catch any glimpses of our Aímamer but the auditory clues, hinting at despicable battle noises, told of a lopsided battle, with Shthelith having the upper hand.

My very own enemy shambled in my direction again with riveting celerity. I expertly foiled its attempt to claw at my face by stepping aside in a more graceful manner than I knew I was capable of.

Quickly, I swirled around by several degrees and brutally inserted my blade into its back, slicing its torso in half with an upwards motion. It collapsed and broke down into a beastly pile of half-decomposed, mucilaginous remains.

As I looked up after making sure of the being's demise by visual confirmation, I saw that Nephethys had by that time already dispatched her target. Shthelith was swift to follow in our footsteps, pulling out his cruel tool from the creature's head as I shot him a gaze.

As a monsoon of bloodied bits and pieces splattered against the walls and his robe, I caught myself feeling a profound sickness arise. I had severe trouble to suppress and conceal it, but eventually held in the bubbling vomit that I was much too close to release.

"We have to be more careful then", Nephethys casually remarked, albeit slightly annoyed. But she was right.

"Indeed. Truth be told, we couldn't know that these things were able to sense our-", I began to say before the distressed Dunmer cut me off.

"It interests me none", she complained loudly, "Just start exhibiting caution adequate to our situation already", she commanded even louder.

Her change in demeanor frightened me. Never had she been talking back to me in such aggressive fashion. The developing behavioral dissonances pertaining to her were extraordinarily appalling - and very saddening. Our usual, affectionate discourse was slowly and gently chipped away at by… something.

I was only left to wonder, but told myself that the unbearable stress of our ordeal brought about this shocking alteration. I consciously held back a tear that threatened to emerge, but not without being heartbroken to an extent.

"Do not be so harsh, Dark Elfe. He hath no fault. How should-", Shthelith intervened, finding himself to be now the target of Nephethys' anger.

"Couldst thou stop lecturing me? In that annoying, antiquated manner no less?", she boomed quizzaciously. Shthelith and I looked at each other in bafflement. I sighed in resignation, intent on letting the matter rest for the time being. Shthelith already inhaled to expostulate, but I motioned him not to by shaking my head. In response, he, too, aspirated a sigh of disappointment. But we had no use for infighting in our situation.

After the three of us had had a breather from the most recent combat and contention, we resolved to push forward, even though with minor grumbling. As we all entered the room to the right of the corridor, we came to the realization that the presence of these flesh monsters also meant that there was at least one more Shredmound around.

A scary thought. Running the risk of potentially being digested alive was a nightmare incarnate. Worse, still, getting turned into one of those mindless creations of darkest phantasm was unthinkable and yet, very much a reality.

We pressed on. The space we had entered was just as lightless as the rest of the burial chambers, so we had to again rely on the Blood Elf's spells to keep visibility at an acceptable level.

In that room's center, there was a dried out well as the first feature we could espy. Upon closer examination, I noticed that it was heavily encrusted with coagulated blood. I briefly asked myself as to what its now bygone purpose might have been but got interrupted by the astonished gasps of my fellows.

Their wide eyes surveyed the room. I did the same and suddenly understood their dignified awe. For the walls were completely covered in rectangular recesses from top to bottom, five per column stretching all the way to the very back of the chamber. We found each of them being occupied by a sealed, great stone sarcophagus bearing strange marks, impossible to decipher.

Notwithstanding their apparent sturdiness, past events have taught me to exercise utmost caution in spite of their indubitably robust workmanship. One can never know if a vile conjurer may raise the corpses of the deceased. Or perhaps another power, beyond our grasp, calls forth terrible doom.

To always have to anticipate a catastrophe was worse by several orders of magnitude than a disaster actually taking place. It was pure, unbridled, psychological torture. So nerve-racking in fact, I completely lost grip on my usual composure and began to cry, my heart beating, pounding, hammering with dread.

For a moment, my sanity slipped under the intense pressure. A thousand different reasons to be anxious in every moment will do that to you.

I was in luck, for my companions didn't catch me weeping, feeble and frail as I was. I managed to get a hold of my emotions again and literally gulped it all down as I swallowed a great lump of saliva and mucus to pass through my swollen throat. Besides, there was no telling what the now highly agitated Nephethys would have said or done if she had seen me as weak and squeamish like this. I could not hope for any support from her. At least that is what I felt.

As I got myself together, the still very much surprisingly calm Shthelith remarked that this tomb was reserved for only the most masterful of blood mages of his race.

"If someone were to invoketh such power by reanimation, peril would surely devoureth our land as mindless chaos emergeth from within the dead husks of these most powerful witches and wizards", he said, explaining that these bodies were still filled with blood from which they could draw powerful magic, even in a puppet-like state.

We searched the great room for anything significant aside from that fountain and the numerous sarcophagi, but nothing came of it. We played with the thought of opening a few of the heavy, stone caskets but refrained from doing it because we did not know if anything would thence trigger some effect to reanimate the body in question.

So, it appeared to be nothing more than a simple burial chamber to honor the deceased. And albeit I harboured an intense aversion towards that dried fountain, what exactly caused this I could, at the time, not yet say.

With relief and disappointment in our hearts, we left and instead inspected the chamber on the opposite side. To our chagrin, the arguably small enclosure was completely empty. That's what we thought at first.

However, as Shthelith's light illuminated the corners, a patch of a peculiar… something became visible.

The Aímamer already moaned in dismay.

"This here is a ceiling, or floor, of flesh blocking our path. We ought to remove it if we intend to access the stairs that layeth below. However, ye be wary. This likewise meaneth that there thriveth a Shredmound underneath. Upon ingress, we are sure to arrest its attention. It doth not like being hurt".

Latent death pulsed rhythmically before us on the ground, throwing me into utter despondence. Regardless, I had somewhat of an obligation to act against my better judgement, for we needed to procure the ancient word.

And so, with reluctance and disgust, I drove in the blade of my Gladius and inflicted nauseating lacerations to the thing, cutting open the aperture along the edges of the sealed mound until, after I had wholly encircled it, a massive clump of flesh dislodged from it and came crashing down onto the infested, slimy stairs below with several nasty smacks.

Our group could hear it slide further down until, after a few seconds, it came to a halt with more disquieting noises.

An unpleasant steam arose from the forcibly created hole, waging a noisome war on my nostrils. A war with the dirtiest of tricks that I could barely stand my ground against. I can still smell it, even now, as I write this lengthy letter, which tells me that it had won this war long ago.

At last, we ventured into the gaping wound in hopes of finding what we so desperately sought after.


	6. Chapter 6

XV

After having almost tumbled to our respective deaths on the slippery floor, if one could call it a floor, dodging countless malign droplets and puddles and slicing open far too many, fleshy, teeth ridden doors, we had finally reached the deepest part of the crypt.

The past hour, Shthelith, Nephethys and I were occupied with navigating through a maze of soft, wet and meaty tunnels, always accompanied by an unheard of stench.

None of us had expected that the entire lower floor would be a giant victim to Shredmound infestation. As such, we fought many a battle. At times, we found ourselves faced with the digested and smashed back together horrors the alive structure periodically spawned.

Other times we were busy with not getting digested ourselves. If we had inadvertently stayed in the same room overlong, a fluid akin to stomach acid, but much more potent, would slowly flood the place, resulting in all three of us having received some painful burns with patches of partly disintegrated skin in places.

In yet other moments, we were pitted against chaotically flailing, foul protrusions from the walls and ceiling that we had to avoid, lest we got captured and either strangled to death (as was indicated by some carcasses that were hanging about) or dissolved.

The entire time, we could breathe only with considerable trouble for the air was thick with a hundred kinds of liquefied mould.

Through our collective perseverance and accumulative combat prowess and magical acumen, however, we were able to, at length, arrive at what I would describe as the Inner Sanctum.

In opposition to the remainder of the lowest floor, this final, grand space was untouched by the ravaging sickness that spread its talons all over the entombments. As such, all that was required to head inside was to free the corresponding door from the salivating, vein-riddled overgrowth that had made itself comfortable thereon.

We entered quickly and without second thought. To us, it mattered not what kind of place we would barge right into as long as we could get away from that beastly structure.

We shut the door behind us just as quickly as we had opened it and took a deep, long breath of somewhat stale but dry and clean air.

We paused there for a moment of temporary respite in order to consume some provisions. As alien as it may sound to you, I had at that point adopted a certain tolerance to human meat, both physically and mentally.

Nephethys watched me in profound disgust as I nourished my starved body. But she did not glare at me as hatefully as she had an hour prior. Her nerves seemed to be in order again, notwithstanding our past journey through blood and bile.

While we were attending to our sustenance, we used the blissful peace, rare in these parts, to scrutinize our new safe haven.

We were situated in a large, circular room, about thirty meters in diameter, composed of the same, afore seen masonry. The walls were quite curiously decorated with tall, stained glass windows depicting geometrical shapes. All this in spite of the presence of a wall directly behind each of them. Gazing up above, I could see that the ceiling was rather high up. From it, a radiant, slim cone of light shone brightly, enabling us to see without the aid of Shthelith's magic, prompting him to dispel his guiding fire.

In the middle of our present location stood a cube of rock, approximately one meter in width, height and depth. On it rested a glass pyramid of slightly smaller outline.

After our, admittedly ghastly, meal, we approached the intriguing apparatus.

I fastidiously inspected it, touching the contraption carefully. Or should I rather say, I tried? For you see, when my fingers did connect, I suddenly formed a precise conjecture in respect of the true extent of the discrepancy in resonance betwixt my blood and the magical oscillations this world seemed to be attuned to.

My hands were involuntarily shaking with rigorous vigor. My entire body quaked, begging to be released from this curse Shthelith denoted as the 'magical frequency'. It was not painful, yet irredeemably unpleasant and highly impractical, to say the least.

Amidst the heat of battle and flight from the indigenous monstrosities, I did not notice how great that dissonance really was.

As I strained my hands, in vain, to remain calm, the uncontrollable trembling aided me not. I tried my utmost to handle the pyramid with care, sensing its impossibly smooth surface, before my shaking fingertips gave one of the outer corners a nudge.

It was with great enough force to reveal that the vitreous construct could be rotated.

I moved it further until it snapped in place with a _click_ after turning it forty-five degrees, causing the crystal tips to hang over the cube's edges.

As a result, the heretofore conical beam of light focused and infused the statue with luminescence. In its current angle, a few lustrous rays highlighted six of the twenty-nine colorful images that were mounted on the walls.

The now very gaily colored room was beautiful to behold indeed.

Shortly after, I turned the statue again and saw that now, thirteen windows were targeted by the awesome beams, as the incandescent rays grew more numerous. I realized, after turning it a third time and the number of highlighted spots changed again, that this machine appeared to be a puzzle - a key to a lock of very singular craft.

I fumbled around with the instrument for a few minutes, continuously altering the room's lighting and color palette, until, at length, I made it turn in such a way as to set agleam all of the wall-mounted, glass vistas. This provoked a kaleidoscopic display of great splendor impossible to describe properly. It was as if by this process, entirely new and hitherto unknown colors had been created. A marvellous pulchritude of an otherworldly quality. A sight to behold, majestic and foreign as it was.

A corroborating _thunk _let the prismatic form snap into place one last time, immovable.

_Ad hoc_, an up to that moment hidden compartment inside the stone cube was unlocked and slid towards me in a gentle pace, like one would pull out a drawer from within a cupboard.

In said compartment sat a scroll, rolled together, emitting an aura of antediluvian antiquity. It was held together with an unbreakable, golden seal. I reached out and grabbed the ancient scripture to find that a message had been etched into the inner stone plating of the cube. It read:

_"The Golden Seal shall breaketh by Thee,_

_If Thou hast the Seals of Three,_

_By Blood, Flesh and the Bone,_

_Thy new path is thusly shewn,_

_Tread the ancient roads of old,_

_And the Key Thou shalt behold."_

From the inscriptions on the gates to Bendicia, I instinctively knew what this message sought to tell me in this enigmatic manner.

However, my mind was soon thrown into unrest as the drawer abruptly slammed shut and the pyramid spun maniacally with mad speed, causing the surrounding lights to delve into luminous insanity.

Versicolor wisps materialized in front of the panes and gathered around the central pillar of light, swirling, rotating, dancing a beauteous dance before traveling up, out of our sight and into the forebodingly dark heights of the ceiling.

We were baffled, really. Nonetheless, we resolved to make our way back onto the surface. It was time we went to acquire the seals.

XVI

Our trip back into the chapel proper was minorly less cumbersome, forwhy we knew the way back and subsequently, did not get caught up in dead ends in the maze of death and decay underneath the church. While we traversed the afflicted bowels of the religious building, it was no easy feat to accomplish due to the perpetual peril that lurked down there in the form of untold menace. In spite of this, we only required half the time it took us to discover that sealed scroll.

With newly established courage in our minds and a heightened morale in response to finally have made some progress at all, we at last crawled out of the tightly carved out quarry beneath the altar, resurfacing in the hall of Sárka, whose carcass already began to wither contemptibly.

Just as we turned around to face the exit doors, we noticed the twenty-nine, colorful wisps from earlier in the dankest depths of the sepulchre, melodically hovering in place before the gate. As if they would guard it to prevent egress.

Alas, my suspicions were confirmed for we were not allowed to tread within five meters of that gate. We attempted, but were stopped by the wisps that launched a volley of glittering projectiles at us. We were trapped, it appeared.

"Queer", Shthelith mumbled to himself as he observed the floating orbs sway up and down repeatedly.

He scratched the back of his head and already inhaled to voice a self-addressed question when those wisps began to levitate towards us. At least, we thought that they did.

The three of us already assumed defensive stances, weapons drawn in anticipation for combat, but the guarding sentries flew by, ignoring our presences, to head straight for the rose window that gave me the chills a few hours earlier. The one that unnerved me so as to prompt me to stay as far away from it as was feasible.

The lights positioned themselves in a circular pattern before it and hovered in mid-air. A few seconds later, all of them vanished into the rose window, out of sight. What happened next still bends my mind to this very day.

The window, in its entirety, first began to sport cracks in the glass hither and thither. Then, the glass shattered violently, sending a thousand shards our way. They got deflected just in time by Shthelith who constituted a warding spell at the last possible moment. How he could have known that these projectiles were of magical, and not of physical, nature was beyond me at the time.

But I had no time to contemplate that coincidence. There were far more troubling things to be concerned about.

After the panes had exploded, we all stared into a seething, bubbling, pitch black void that seemingly took a hold on present reality by sending tendrils of solid, animate shadow creeping over the outer edges of the freshly brought about hole in the wall of the tower. Its mere like caused a sense of unrelenting terror in each and every one of us. None could withstand the maddening implications of a pocket of outer space being this easily accessible.

Shortly thereafter, there rose up a thing from the beyond. A crystalline dæmon surfaced from that gaping maw of emptiness and tore asunder the remainder of that window to clumsily climb on all fours inside the great hall.

As debris fell and rubble conglomerated beneath its crushingly heavy, spiked feet, it started to stand upright and we saw that this thing was as tall as the high ceiling itself.

_I recognized it._

To my horror, this appeared to be the very thing I always fancied seeing whenever I passed by that eerie window that was now a gateway to recesses of outer spheres I would rather not explore.

That winged devil was composed completely of triangular stained glass panes, held together by what I assumed to be magical forces. Each of the panes was of a different shade than the one directly next to it. Its general, geometrical form was utterly startling and defied all I had known of beast physiology.

The head possessed two horns and a long snout, above it hints of eye sockets. Its arms had hands with very much sharp looking talons, its legs outfitted with clawed feet. All this got accentuated by a surprisingly movable tail protruding from its behind.

Moreover, the wings were pointy and jagged as well. Everything made of colorful glass.

As æsthetically pleasing as this Stained Glass Dæmon looked, I had a sneaking suspicion that it was also the guardian assigned to protect the ancient word. Furthermore, the fact that I was able to gaze right through it made me tragically underestimate our adversary.

Before we even had the chance to react with a first strike, the vitreous beast hurled forth a volley of shards in our general direction. We collectively jumped and rolled out of harm's way but got nigh overwhelmed when walls of glass suddenly appeared before us to halt our movement.

For lack of a better option, we charged right at it, weapons drawn. Behind us, the glass walls exploded with great strength as we struck our enemy with everything we had. But curiously, it appeared to be unfazed by our assault. With its ginormous talons, it swept us away to the side to let us crash into the nearest wall, inflicting several cuts on all the exposed skin that was not covered in armor.

Then, its right arm disassembled in a flurry of shards to reassemble into a giant lance under the deafening noise of chafed glass. It came down swiftly and rammed into the quaking ground. While it fortunately failed to impale us, the shockwave sent us flying yet another time.

It retracted its crystal limb whereupon it reverted back into its original form.

We made every effort not to lie on the floor for too long and soon, attempted another attack. Our armaments would only ricochet off its solid corpus as we did. It did not take kindly to our actions and responded by beating its wings to fly into the air, grinding at the ceiling with its nigh indestructible head.

From there, it shoved its arms forward, a wave of jagged spikes following its motion. It hit our group and the attack penetrated our armor. As the three of us were thrown back, we began to bleed profusely. Adding to our misery was the fact that this thing appeared to be invulnerable, impenetrable.

That was until I noticed a glimmer of light in the shape of a trapezohedron rotating in its see through chest.

Immediately, I drew conclusions and looked over to the altar to find the gem we had inserted into it to be fully ablaze with a fire of life it had not shewn earlier.

I tried to stand up but was brought to my knees for a second as the monster landed, provoking the earth to tremble under its weight. I turned my head to gaze behind me. I found my two friends feverishly battling the creature as it morphed both its arms into huge blades to try and cut them in half. My companions narrowly averted their doom in a display of impressive agility which gave me more time to focus my attention on the gem.

I approached it and, with my sword, struck the very small jewel with all my strength.

Impetuously, an ear-shattering scream could be heard, a screech so loud, I had to cover my ears to prevent them from bursting.

I had finally hurt the dæmon.

Triumph was short-lived, however, as I witnessed in breathtaking awe how it ripped off one of its wings and reshaped it into a gigantic javelin to cast upon me. Or, rather, upon the altar. In my attempt to get away from the ginormous projectile, I tripped and fell into the quarry that led to the crypt, only at the last moment did I get a hold of the iron rungs to forestall me from falling to my horrible and untimely death. As a result, it missed me only just, but the shrine got thoroughly obliterated.

When I climbed up again to regain my foothold against this adversity, I observed innumerable shards and bits of debris being flung through the air - along with the gem, the dæmon's weakness. And that I now knew displeased it immeasurably.

Another shrill screech followed, shattering a few of the tall windows, their pieces aimed right at us. Nephethys slyly danced around and betwixt them while I could get behind Shthelith's ward in time as to not get perforated.

I called out to my friends, then.

"The gem! The trapezohedron that opened the crypt! Destroy it!", I yelled.

As I finished my exclamation and earned an acquiescing "Understood!" from each of them, the glassen menace lashed out at me and the Blood Elf with its massive hand.

We rolled off to the side in different directions. From my new point of view, I could see the twinkling gem as it lay near the doors.

I feverishly ran towards it and my compatriots understood what I was intent on doing. They did their utmost to arrest the attention of the horror while I slid on my own blood - and the blood of others - across the floor to get to the glowing stone. Finally in reach, I furiously swung my Gladius at it, missed a few times due to its tiny size, but eventually my weapon connected and provoked more sorry noises from our enemy.

I heard a concerned "Watch out!" from somewhere behind me. Nephethys tried to warn me as I witnessed in profound worry how the thing ripped off another of its wings. But I was reassured, because I saw cracks forming on its body.

The dæmoniac spawn of empty voids bothered itself not with realigning the wing's pieces and tossed it right away, covering a large area in pain and suffering. Upon impact, the gem flew elsewhere and so did I. I crashed into one of the buttresses and lost a few things on my way there. My Cloudbreaker fell out of my coat as I landed while the pouch I kept the alchemical mixture in, the compound to ignite the fire to propel forth a projectile, I lost somewhere amidst the broken church benches.

I caught myself thinking:

'If I just had another iron ball for the leftover powder'. If I had been able to shoot the gem with that weapon, it would surely be destroyed, spelling immediate doom for the glass dæmon. Well, if I could at all hit it, for it was roughly the same size as the ammunition I used.

And then, I had an idea.

I hastily picked up my Cloudbreaker and crawled over to the benches to look for the bag of leftover powder. I had no idea if it was enough, but I deemed it worth a try.

In the meantime, I avoided getting ripped to a shred by thousands of fast flying shards the creature had in its rage evoked. My two friends were busy ducking under and jumping over the beast's ravaging tail as it swung wildly back and forth. Little did it know that Nephethys and Shthelith only acted as decoys for me to bring my recently constituted plan to fruition.

I finally reached the bag and stashed both it and the weapon away in my worn out coat.

I carefully stood up and lifted my head in search of the gem. After a while I espied it lying on the opposite side of the hall near one of the still intact windows.

Up to that point I was severely injured, coated in cuts, stabs, bruises and I am sure that one or two bones had been broken somewhere along the way. My fatigue beckoned me to stop, my ice cold sweat foretold my imminent demise. And yet, I found the strength necessary to press on. Even the faintest glimmer of hope in destroying that ghastly guardian was enough to provide an abatement that let me carry myself along my chosen path.

I stumbled across the open space and, out of the corner of my eye, noticed the creature swaying its large talons upwards whereunto I got nearly excoriated by a crystal spike that, among many more, suddenly rose up from the ground. At last, however, I came into possession of that bauble, clutching it tightly in betwixt my fingers, bent on never releasing it ever again.

Meanwhile, my friends were about to collapse from dodging and avoiding the terrible assault that was perpetuated by that iridescent defiance of all that was natural. But I had a plan in mind.

I took the Cloudbreaker into my hands as I watched several more windows shatter with unbelievable might, sending another volley of glistening death over to us like a tempest of knives.

I reloaded the chamber with the leftover, volatile, alchemical powder, unsure if it would even suffice as I observed both of the thing's arms transmogrify into perilous tornadoes, ready to erase all life it touched from existence.

I loaded the barrel with the gem as ammunition when the unstoppable whirlwinds laid waste to the surrounding architecture, causing my companions to run away affrighted.

I aimed at the being's chest as my heart begged for it to be released from the fear and latent death, hammering unrelentingly against my bones, threatening to break free.

I pulled the trigger.

Impetuously, time stopped for a moment at the click of the small piston.

The now armless dæmon stood at the end of the hall and prepared itself to hurl forth more arrows of crystal. At the same time, the two glass storms raged interminably, devouring everything around them while Shthelith and Nephethys ran for their lives, bleeding from every orifice and uncountable wounds.

In the midst of this chaos stood I, stalwart with the rest of my courage, intent on stopping all of that entropy.

As the raucous noise of my Cloudbreaker came, I was deaf. Only the intense ringing in my ears to accompany me in soundless solitude. The already faintly brittle monster to turned its head the noise's source. And then, the shot connected.

For a few seconds, the room was set ablaze in a festival of gay beams of magical energy and a million tiny crystals, gems and baubles that were hurled into the empty space that lay waiting in hunger beyond the broken rose window. The walls adjacent to it were shimmering with refractive splinters, a cataract of pure glimmer streaming down, flooding the floor with waves of twinkling particles.

The statue-like monster collapsed in on itself, like a sand castle being dissolved by heavy rain or the rising flood. A loud trickle announced its death as the tornadoes died down and the remains of them shrapnelled about rather violently in every direction to ricochet off the walls, buttresses and pillars.

In the aftermath, I saw that the carcasses of Sárka, Thladth and the Guardian had been completely disintegrated throughout the battle, only shreds of ground flesh telling of their once rotten presence that coated the besmeared flooring.

Nephethys, Shthelith and I looked at each other, shaking our heads.

"What by Oblivion…", I said, taken aback by everything that had just happened. I looked down at myself in this moment of solace and noticed countless, weeping wounds and a largely perforated coat. The growing weakness of body let me lose my grip on the Cloudbreaker whereunto it fell to the glistening ground.

My two companions looked no better than I, but made efforts to mend the numerous injuries.

We gathered in a circle and by the strong bond of blood magic, all cuts closed swiftly. The pain and exhaustion persevered, however. But at least none of us would be subject to expiry by blood loss.

Shthelith's and Nephethys' magicka reserves were spent and all of us needed time for rejuvenation.

"I should have known that the word was guarded", Shthelith remarked under heavy breathing, "However, I did not expect such a thing emergeth in response to our intrusion and theft. Much less wherever that emptiness leadeth to", he then finalized his speech, pointing at the rough, jetty black circle that dæmon had emerged from.

Indeed, being in the presence of this incomprehensible void frightened me, but I was too broken to gather the strength to get away from it.

"I wonder if more such things can be found here", Nephethys whispered, "or what would happen if we were to climb through it".

I did not dare contemplate more profoundly the nature of that window to empty nothingness in fear of losing my already fractured mind.

Our group rested for an elongated time period, for the feats we had hitherto overcome were much more than we had bargained for. On the other hand, I felt a deep sensation of pride encroaching within me, as I knew that most Nirn dwellers never could do all the things we had done.

As utterly terrified as I was, at the very precipice of mental destruction at times, I was, for the first time, strangely satisfied with myself. Only then did I understand just what order of magnitude the tasks assumed in this world, and how I had heretofore managed to not only survive, but fight my way through all that hideousness.

But not only I, we all got stronger along the way.

After we had sufficiently rested to consume the last of our provisions down to their respective detriments and my two friends had minorly replenished their magicka reserves, we discussed on where to go next and what to do from there.

We had finally acquired the ancient word. Now, we needed to go forth and bring together the three seals of Bone, Flesh and Blood.

"I shall aid and accompany ye further", Shthelith proposed, "Good me hath nowhere to go. I betray'd my race. Ye art my kin now. Aside from that, I do believe I will be of invaluable help to you. I know how to navigate these lands. And I can teach ye a few tricks, yes yes! Prithee, take me along!", he exclaimed and pleaded.

Without a second thought, Nephethys and I condescended in unison, permitting Shthelith a continued, permanent stay within our ranks.

Albeit I did not have a firm grasp concerning his motives, I understood that he was, in fact, the best support we could get out there. He thanked us most graciously, bowing, voicing a promise of shewing us the intricacies of blood magic and the inner workings of this realm.

Then, Nephethys began to tear up without warning.

"I'm sorry, Thorus", she muttered. "Sorry for attacking you down in the crypt. I… I felt as if I was not in control of myself".

I appeased her with a gentle embrace and a smile. "I know", I said.

I wiped her tears away from under her eyes and gave her a kiss on the forehead before pressing their face against my chest. A kiss of reunion after our argument. A consolation in the growing darkness that threatened to swallow us whole if we let our minds slip and led astray one too many times.

"I know", I whispered then, one last time before letting go.

"I apologize to you too, Shthelith", she then enunciated, looking over to him.

"'tis fine!", he proclaimed in his quirky manner, "Thou needst not worry. Shthelith understandeth that madness creepeth into one's mind when faced with such things and perpetual torment".

He laughed a hearty and forgiving laugh, making Nephethys snicker in response.

Thusly, our conflict had been resolved and we felt ready to conquer the last stretch of the journey.

And so, we wandered to the chapel's gate and swung open the heavy doors to claim egress.

We stepped out into the hamlet of the Aímamer, several pairs of prying eyes, too scared to engage in direct confrontation, watching our every step.

Little did I know that all horrors we had hitherto faced paled in comparison to all that should thenceforth transpire.

But to that, I was yet oblivious, only determination and fierce resolve ruling my mind.

We knew what we had to do. And like that, we made our way to procure the Three Seals of the Apocalypse.


End file.
